Many, many years ago, when the world was young, there lived in a
country very fair and full of flowers an old man who had three
daughters. They were simple, humble folk and owned little save a herd
of goats, and these were dearer to the old man than anything else in
the world, dearer even than his three fine daughters. Every day one of
the girls went forth with the flock and tended them upon the hillside,
and woe be to her if, when she returned at night, one of the little
beasts was hurt or missing! The father stood by the gate of their yard
and counted them all as they ran in at evening, and often he felt of
each and caressed it, murmuring terms of endearment which might better
have been spent on his daughters, to whom he never showed any affection
at all.
One day, when it was the turn of the eldest to tend the flock, she
returned at night, very late, and with eyes red and swollen with
weeping. The cause of her grief soon appeared; one of the goats was
missing, and the angry father lost no time in venting his wrath in
shrill words of abuse and cruel blows. The poor girl crept away to bed,
crying and complaining, but to all her sisters’ questions she answered
no word save to bid them crossly to be quiet. Yet there was something
in her manner which led the other two to believe that she had met with
some strange adventure, and they talked long together, wondering and
guessing as to what it might have been.
The next morning the second daughter set forth to watch the goats, and
returned late at night as the first had done, weary and crying
bitterly, for another goat had been lost. And if the father had been
angry and cruel before, he was twice as much so now. He beat the poor
girl’s shoulders with his heavy stick and cursed her till she fled in
terror to her bed and lay there, trembling and weeping in the dark. But
when the youngest daughter asked her gently what had happened, and how
she had lost the goat, she was bidden to hold her peace, and could
learn nothing. She noticed, however, that her two sisters now exchanged
looks of understanding, and whispered much together, stopping at once
when she came by. She was filled with curiosity and could scarcely
sleep that night for eagerness to try her luck with the flock next day,
and see if any strange adventure would befall her.
Early in the morning Ananda (for that was the youngest daughter’s name)
set forth with the goats to the hillside, resolved to be very alert and
avoid all the trouble her sisters had fallen into. The weather was
unusually warm and sultry, and about noon a great sense of heaviness
and sleep came upon her, so that, in spite of all her efforts, her eyes
would no longer stay open. She lay down under a tree, thinking she
would let herself sleep for just a few moments, but when she awoke she
found, to her dismay, that the moments had lengthened into hours, the
sun was nigh setting, and while she had slept one of the goats had gone
astray.
“Alas!” she thought. “My father will kill me if another goat is lost! I
must find it, though I hunt all night!” She began looking hurriedly
everywhere, in all the pastures where the flock were wont to stray, on
the neighboring hillsides and in the valleys, calling the goat by name
and watching in the soft ground for the mark of his hoofs. At last, a
long distance from where the others had grazed, she found the
impression of the hoofs of a single goat leading away along the muddy
banks of a stream. These she followed eagerly, hoping with every step
to see her missing charge in the distance. The marks led steadily on,
and she followed farther and farther until at length she found herself
in a strange country full of great rocks and dark-mouthed caves. The
hoof marks left the bank of the stream at this point, led directly to a
cave in the side of a hill, and there stopped short. The mouth of the
cave was closed by a big red door, and Ananda, pushing against it,
found that it opened easily, leading into a passageway dim and damp. At
the end of this passage was another door which shone in the dark,
making the way almost bright before it. This, she found, was of solid
gold and, wondering much, she tried it and found that it, too, opened
readily. Beyond was another passage, shorter than the first and lighted
by the radiance of the gold door behind her. Ananda hastened to the end
of it, where she found, to her astonishment, two doors, side by side,
one of mother-of-pearl and the other of emerald. By this time she had
quite forgotten the goat, so filled was she with wonder and curiosity.
She lost no time in pushing against the mother-of-pearl door, but,
though she threw all her weight upon it, she could not make it yield an
inch. So, turning with a sigh, she tried the emerald door, which opened
at once; stepping across the threshold, she found herself in a large
vaulted room, brilliantly lighted by lamps which swung from the
ceiling. On every side were signs of luxury and wealth, soft divans,
curious rich furnishings, and on the floor, in careless piles, gold
coins and precious stones,—diamonds, rubies, emeralds and many others,
beyond all power to count. Ananda rubbed her eyes, thinking she must
still be sleeping. There appeared to be no living being in the room, so
she began peering around in this corner and that, wondering more and
more as she came upon one rich object after another. Suddenly she was
startled by a voice quite close behind her.
“Good day, fair damsel!” it said. “May I ask what it is you are looking
for?”
Ananda wheeled around in terror, but there was no person visible behind
her. Only she noticed a richly carved table in the corner with a gold
cage upon it, and in the cage a beautiful snow-white bird.
“Who could have been speaking?” said she to herself, still looking in
every direction, and, as if in answer to her thought, the white bird
moved on his golden perch and spoke again.
“Damsel, I bid you good day, and welcome to my dwelling. But pray tell
me what it is you are seeking?”
Ananda stared in astonishment. “So it was you who spoke!” said she. “In
truth, I hadn’t noticed you before!” And then, bethinking her of the
question twice asked, and not yet answered, she continued, “I beg your
pardon—I have come to seek my father’s goat which is lost. I followed
his hoof marks to the door of this cave and had hoped to find him
within.”
“I can restore your goats to you,” said the bird, “that which you lost
to-day, and those which your sisters lost before you.”
“Oh, you are most kind!” cried the girl. “Give them to me, I beg, and I
will hasten home and trouble you no longer!”
“Not so fast! Not so fast!” replied the bird. “Wait and hear my
conditions. Your sisters refused them with scorn and preferred to
endure all the ill-treatment and abuse at home rather than to consider
for a moment what I proposed.”
“They must be hard conditions indeed,” said Ananda, “to make me refuse
them and go home goatless to my angry father! Tell me, good bird—what
are they?”
“This is the bargain I propose,” said the white bird slowly. “If you
will marry me and live in luxury here, in my palace cave, I will send
all the goats straightway back to your father. Moreover, you shall have
all that your heart can desire, in so far as wealth can give it. Come,
now! I will let you have fifteen minutes in which to consider. Sit down
upon that divan yonder, and when your mind is made up, speak and I will
listen.” Then the white bird began busily pecking grains of food from
the cup in his cage, as if he had nothing further to say on the
subject.
Slowly Ananda walked over to the divan and sat down. “If I go home
without the goat,” she reasoned with herself, “my father will nigh kill
me in his anger—and yet, to marry a white bird, truly that would be a
very sorry adventure. But (looking around the brightly lighted room)
life at home is poor and dull, and here would be much to amuse and
interest me. And even a white bird might prove a good companion, if I
had no other.” She arose and walked back to the cage with a decided
step.
“I will marry you!” said she to the white bird.
“Good!” said he, and rising on his perch, fluttered his wings.
Immediately there appeared before Ananda a table spread with a fine
cloth and having upon it the best supper her eyes had ever looked on.
“Sit down and eat,” continued the white bird, “for you must be hungry.
The goats are even now on their way homeward and will find your
father’s pen unguided, with the rest of the flock, to-night.”
So Ananda married the white bird and lived in the palace cave, and for
a long time her days were full of wonder and delight. There seemed no
end to the treasures around her, and she had but to form a wish in her
mind to have it straightway granted. But after awhile she began to grow
lonely. Every morning the white bird disappeared (whither, she never
knew), and all day long she must remain by herself in the great vaulted
room. In the evening the white bird would return, but after all, he was
poor company compared with her two sisters, and she began to regret
what she had done and long to be at home again. The white bird brought
her news of the outside world and tried to cheer her by talk and
gossip, and one time he told her of a fair which was to be held next
day in a near-by village. Ananda sighed deeply as he told of it.
“How I should love to go to that fair!” said she. “It is so long since
I have seen any of my kind.”
“My dear,” said the white bird, “I think it unwise for you to go; my
heart tells me that ill will come of it. Nevertheless, if you greatly
desire it, if nothing else will make you happy, you shall have your
wish. Go to the fair and stay all day. Indeed, if you go at all, you
must promise me faithfully not to return until six o’clock in the
evening.”
Ananda was delighted, readily gave the desired promise and bustled
eagerly about, preparing for the morrow. The next day she started forth
bright and early and in good time reached the fair grounds. Such a
merry time she had from the very start! She made friends with everybody
around her, and having plenty of money to spend on herself and others,
she soon found herself extremely popular. She saw all there was to be
seen and did all there was to be done, and the morning was gone before
she knew it.
Early in the afternoon there rode into the fair grounds a stranger on a
snow-white horse. Very tall and strong he was, and good to look upon,
and he was dressed in silk and cloth-of-gold, like a prince. Everybody
began at once to ask everybody else who he was and whence he came, and
it soon appeared that nobody at the fair had ever seen or heard of him
before. All talked and marvelled at his handsome face, fine carriage
and princely clothes, and wherever he went, a little crowd followed
after him, watching curiously everything he did. Ananda saw him too,
and when she looked into his face, all the happiness suddenly died
within her, and she wished mightily that she had never come to the fair
at all, for she knew that she loved him with all her heart. She
wandered away from her gay young companions and stood watching the
stranger from a distance and feeling very sorrowful.
“What ails you, my girl?” a thin, cracked voice suddenly said in her
ear, and looking around she saw a little old woman, very bent and aged,
and with a shrewd, wrinkled face. “What ails you?” she repeated,
tapping the ground with her staff. And because Ananda did not seem to
be able to do otherwise, she told her frankly the whole thing.
“Alas, good mother,” she said, “I have fallen in love with yonder
princely stranger!”
“And why should that make you unhappy?” said the old woman. “Why should
you not hope to marry him as well as any other; you are a pretty wench,
to be sure!”
“I am already married to the white bird,” said Ananda, with a sigh.
“That is as it should be, my dear! That is as it should be!” And the
old woman broke into a cackling laugh.
“How can that be?” cried Ananda crossly, for she was quite bewildered.
“Because, my dear, yonder princely stranger is the white bird himself
in his right and proper form.”
Ananda could only gasp with amazement, and the crone continued, “He is
bewitched, that is all!” And then she moved off as if she had done with
the subject, but Ananda ran after her and, catching her by the sleeve,
made her stop.
“Tell me! Tell me!” she cried. “Can I not break the spell? Is there no
way in which I can keep him in his right form?”
“Let me go!” snapped the old woman. “Yes, of course there is a way! Go
home at once, before he can reach there, and you will find his gold
cage and perch and bird feathers in a corner of the vaulted room. Take
these and burn them; then when he comes back, he will keep his man form
forever.”
Scarcely waiting to murmur her thanks, Ananda started for home, running
all the way and arriving at the red door of the cave quite out of
breath and exhausted. She soon found the gold cage and perch and the
white bird feathers in a corner of the vaulted room, as the old woman
had said, and these she quickly took outside and burned, until nothing
remained but a little pile of ashes. Then she sat down happily beside
the red door to await the return of the White Bird Prince.
Before long she caught sight of him riding towards her, and she jumped
up and ran to meet him. But he, when he saw her, stopped short and
looked down upon her very sorrowfully.
“Ananda,” said he, “you have broken your word; you have come home
before me. Alas, nothing but ill can come of it!” They moved on slowly
until they came to the little pile of ashes which was all that was left
of the golden cage and perch, and the white feathers. The White Bird
Prince got down from his horse and stood looking at it for a long time
in silence. Then he turned to Ananda and said, “You have burnt my bird
form, my perch and my cage, have you not?”
“Yes,” replied Ananda, beginning to cry, “but I did it that you might
keep your man form forever, my dear husband.”
“In burning my feathers,” he continued, “you have burnt my soul, and
now I shall be taken from you, and we can never see each other again.”
“No! no! don’t say that!” cried Ananda wildly. “If through my fault you
have lost your soul, surely I can win it back for you! I cannot, cannot
lose you now that I have got you in your own true form!”
The White Bird Prince looked upon her kindly, but there was little hope
in his face as he spoke.
“Because you have burnt my soul, to-night there will come a throng of
good and evil spirits who will fight for me, and at the end of seven
days and seven nights the victorious ones will carry me away. And then
I shall never be able to see my dear wife again. Nevertheless, there is
one way in which you can save me, though I fear it is far too hard a
task for any woman. If, for seven days and seven nights, while the good
and evil spirits are fighting for me, you can beat with a staff upon
the mother-of-pearl door outside our palace, without rest or pause for
a single moment, then at the end of that time you will be able to break
through the door and win back my soul for me. If you can do that, the
good and evil spirits will be forced to flee, and you and I may dwell
in peace together.”
“Surely,” cried Ananda joyfully, “that is not such a hard task, and for
love of you, I can easily perform it! Give me a stout staff that I may
be ready!”
That evening, when the sun had set, there came a great company of good
and evil spirits as the prince had foretold, and they strove together
outside the cave, and the din of their fighting was terrible to hear.
But Ananda heeded them not. With a mighty staff she beat upon the
mother-of-pearl door, all that night and the next day and the next,
never pausing a moment, though she grew so weary she could scarcely
stand or see. For seven days and seven nights she hammered on the door,
and in the very last hour it began to give way beneath her blows. But
in that hour her strength failed her, and she dropped exhausted and
senseless to the ground and slept, unknowing, while the spirits carried
away her beloved husband. When she came to herself again and found that
he was gone, her grief knew no bounds.
“But weeping will do no good!” she said to herself at last. “I will
rise up and search for my prince, though I have to go to the ends of
the world to find him!”
So, drying her eyes, she took a stout staff in her hand and set forth
at once, though she still ached with weariness and knew not which way
to turn first.
It would be long to tell of her journey and of the adventures she met
with by the way. Far and wide she traveled over the face of the earth,
neither pausing nor resting, but ever seeking the White Bird Prince. At
last, one day, when she was walking through a deep and lovely valley,
to her unbounded joy she heard the prince’s voice calling her from the
top of a mountain. Quickly and happily she climbed to the top, though
the way was rough and hard beyond anything she had yet experienced. But
when she had reached the summit, her husband was nowhere to be seen,
and she was about to give up in despair when she heard his voice again
from the depths of the valley. So she hurried breathlessly down again,
and there, seated beside a stream and waiting for her, was the White
Bird Prince himself. With a cry of joy she ran toward him, and they
kissed and caressed and were happy beyond measure, but their joy was
short.
“My dear wife,” said the Prince, “most grateful am I for this meeting,
but now we must part again. The evil spirits have me in their power and
have made me their water-bearer, and all day long I travel from the
depths of the valley to the top of the mountain and back again,
carrying water for them in a huge jug. And now I must return again to
my labor.”
“Let me stay with you!” cried Ananda eagerly. “Have I not gone to the
ends of the earth to find you?”
“That may not be,” replied the Prince; “nevertheless, since your love
for me is so great, perhaps you can even yet win back my soul for me.”
“How? Oh, tell me how!” said Ananda. “Nothing can be too hard for my
love!”
“Go back, then,” replied her husband, “go back to our palace cave and
there build for me another golden cage and perch like those you burned.
When they are finished, sit down before the cage and sing, and put into
your song all your love for me. If your love is strong enough, it will
woo my soul back in the form of a bird, and I shall return and take my
soul again, the magic spell under which I used to live will be broken,
and you and I can dwell together in our true forms happily and lovingly
for the rest of our lives.”
At this point in the story the Siddhi-kur stopped short and said no
more.
“Well, did she do it? Did Ananda sing the song and woo back the soul of
the White Bird Prince?” asked the Khan’s son, forgetting in his
interest all about Nagarguna and his command to keep silent.
“Of course she did!” replied the Siddhi-kur, “and her song was so full
of love and beauty that its like has never been heard, even to this
very day. But see now, you have broken silence, my son, and so I am
free once more to go back to my mango tree in the cool grove beside the
garden of ghost children. Farewell! And be you wiser in future!”
And with that, the Siddhi-kur jumped lightly from the sack on the
Prince’s back and in a flash had vanished in the distance.
It profited nothing for the Prince to rage at himself and his folly.
There was nothing left to do but to go back all the way he had come and
fetch the Siddhi-kur again, for never would he dare to face Nagarguna
with his task unaccomplished. So, taking a bite from his magic cake,
which grew not less, he turned about and set forth once more to the
northward. Over the same rough road he traveled, meeting the same
adventures and passing them safely by, until at last he came again to
the beautiful garden of ghost children and found the Siddhi-kur sitting
in his mango tree and smiling down upon him. Now, after he had captured
the Siddhi-kur as before and set him on his back, and after they had
gone far on the homeward way in silence, that creature of magic spoke
again, saying,
“Truly, O Khan’s son, this is a long and wearisome journey. Tell me, I
beg you, some tale of marvel that the way may seem shorter and
pleasanter to us both.” But, as his suggestion received no reply, he
continued:
“Since you are minded to keep silence at any cost, at least you can
have no objection to my telling you a story. I have a goodly one in my
mind even now, and if you say nothing to prevent me, I shall begin at
once.” After waiting for a moment in silence, the Siddhi-kur began his
second tale.