a certain mountain-peak and jump off on to the belt of clouds below,
he would be able to ride about on them as on a horse and see the whole
world. Trusting in this, the man did as the wizard had told him, and in
very truth was enabled to ride about on the clouds. He visited the whole
world in this manner, and brought back a map which he had drawn of the
whole world, both of men and gods. On arriving back at the mountain-peak
in Aino-land, he stepped off the cloud on to the mountain, and,
descending to the valley, told the wizard how successful and delightful
the journey had been, and thanked him for the opportunity kindly granted
him of seeing sights so numerous and so strange. The wizard was overcome
with astonishment. For what he had told the other man was a lie—a wicked
lie, invented with the sole intention of causing his death, for he hated
him. Nevertheless, seeing that what he had simply meant for an idle tale
was apparently an actual fact, he decided to see the world himself in
this easy fashion. So, ascending the mountain-peak, and seeing a belt
of clouds a short way below, he jumped off on to it, but was instantly
dashed to pieces in the valley below. That night the god of the mountain
appeared to the good man in a dream, and said: “The wizard has met with
the death which his fraud and folly deserved. You I kept from hurt,
because you are a good man. So when, obedient to the wizard’s advice,
you leapt off on to the cloud I bore you up, and showed you the world to
make you a wiser man. Let all men learn from this how wickedness leads to
condign punishment!”
* * * * *
Such a tale as this is not at all likely to have been invented by a race
so low in the scale of humanity as the Ainos; and we must, I think,
consider it as one of the tales and legends which they derived from the
Japanese. As it is, the story presents a remarkable general resemblance
to the Mongolian tale of the Woodcarver and the Painter, of which one
might almost say it is a reflection or an adaptation.
THE KING AND HIS FOUR MINISTERS.
Under the title of “Strike, but Hear,” a considerably abridged and
modified version of this Tale is given in the Rev. Lal Behári Day’s
_Folk-Tales of Bengal_ (London: Macmillan & Co., 1883), of which this is
the substance:
A king appoints his three sons to patrol in turn the streets of his
capital during the night. It happens that the youngest prince in going
his rounds one night sees a very beautiful woman issuing from the palace,
and he asks to know what business she is bent upon at such an hour.
She replies: “I am the guardian deity of this palace. The king will be
killed this night, and therefore I am going away.” The prince persuades
the goddess to return into the palace and await the event. He enters his
father’s bed-chamber and discovers a huge cobra near the royal couch,
and at once cuts the deadly snake into many pieces, which he puts into
a brass vessel that was in the room. Then seeing that some drops of the
serpent’s blood had fallen on his step-mother’s bosom, he wraps a piece
of cloth round his tongue to protect it from the poison, and licks off
the blood. The lady awakes, and recognises him as he is leaving the room.
She accuses him to the king of having used an unpardonable freedom with
her. In the morning the king sends for his eldest son and asks him: “If
a trusted servant should prove faithless, how should he be punished?”
The prince replies: “Surely his head should be parted from his body.
But before doing so, you should ascertain whether the man is actually
guilty.” And then he proceeds to relate the
_Story of the Woman who knew the Language of Animals_.
There was in former times a goldsmith who had a grown-up son, whose wife
was acquainted with the language of animals, but she kept secret from her
husband and all others the fact of her being endowed with such a rare
gift. It happened one night that she heard a jackal exclaim: “There is a
dead body floating on the river; would that some one might give me that
body to eat, and for his pains take the diamond ring from the finger of
that dead man.” The woman arose from her bed and went to the bank of the
river, and her husband, who had not been asleep, got up and followed her
unobserved. She went into the water, drew the corpse on to the land, and,
being unable to loose the ring from the dead man’s finger, which had
swelled, she bit off the finger, and, leaving the corpse on the bank of
the river, returned home, whither she had been preceded by her husband.
Almost petrified by fear, the young goldsmith concluded from what he had
seen that his wife was not a human being but a _rákshasí_; and early in
the morning he hastened to his father and related the whole affair to
him—how the woman had got up during the night and gone to the river, out
of which she dragged a dead body on to the land, and was busy devouring
it when he ran home in horror at the loathsome sight. The old man was
greatly shocked, and advised his son to take his wife on some pretext
into the forest, and leave her there to be destroyed by wild beasts. So
the husband caused the woman to get herself ready to go on a visit to
her parents, and after a hasty breakfast they set out. In going through
a dense _jangal_, where the goldsmith purposed abandoning his wife, she
heard a serpent cry: “O passenger, I pray thee to seize and give me that
croaking frog, and take for thy reward the gold and precious stones
concealed in yonder hole.” The woman at once seized the frog and threw it
towards the serpent, and then began digging into the ground with a stick.
Her husband quaked with fear, thinking that his ghúl-wife was about to
kill him; but she called to him, saying: “My dear husband, gather up all
the gold and precious gems.” Approaching the spot with hesitation, he was
surprised to perceive an immense treasure laid bare by his wife, who then
explained to him how she had learned of it from the snake that lay coiled
up near them, whose language she understood. Then said he to his wife:
“It is now so late that we cannot reach your father’s house before dark,
and we might be slain by wild beasts. Let us therefore return home.” So
they retraced their steps, and approaching the house, the goldsmith said
to his wife: “Do you, my dear, go in by the back door, while I enter by
the front and show my father all this treasure.” The woman accordingly
went in by the back door and was met by her father-in-law, who, on seeing
her, concluded that she had killed and devoured his son, and striking
her on the head with a hammer which he happened to have in his hand she
instantly fell down dead. Just then the son came into the room, but it
was too late.
“I have told your majesty this story,” adds the eldest prince, “in order
that, before putting the man to death, you should make sure that he is
guilty.”
The king then calls his second son, and asks him the same question as he
had asked his brother, to which he replies by relating the
_Story of the King and his Faithful Horse_.
Once a king while engaged in the chase was separated from his attendants,
and seeing what he conceived to be rain-water dropping from the branch of
a tree, being very thirsty, he held his drinking-cup under it until it
was nearly filled, and as he was about to put it to his lips his horse
purposely moved so as to cause the contents to be spilled on the ground,
upon which the king in a rage drew his sword and killed the faithful
animal. But afterwards discovering that what he had taken for rain-water
was poison that dropped from a cobra in the tree, his grief knew no
bounds.
Calling his third son, the king asks him what should be done to the man
who proved false to his trust, and the prince tells the
_Story of the Wonderful Fruit_
which bestowed perennial youth on him who ate of it, with some
unimportant variations from the same story in our Romance.
Then the youngest prince explained the occasion of his presence in the
royal bed-chamber, and how he had saved the king and his consort from the
cobra’s deadly bite. And his majesty, overjoyed and full of gratitude,
strained his faithful son to his heart, and ever afterwards cherished and
loved him with all a father’s love.
* * * * *
Another version is orally current in Kashmír, and, under the title of
“The Four Princes,” a translation of it is given by the Rev. J. Hinton
Knowles in his excellent collection, _Folk-Tales of Kashmír_, from which
are extracted the following details:
Four clever and handsome young princes are hated by their step-mother,
who persuades her husband the king to cease his personal and secret
inspection of the city and adjacent towns and villages—which had long
been his custom, going about at night in disguise—and appoint his four
grown-up, idle sons to the duties. But still the queen is jealous
of them, and poisons the king’s mind against them, so that he speaks
harshly to his worthy sons, without any apparent cause. One night the
four princes met together and discussed the altered conduct of the king
towards them, and the three younger proposed that they should privily
quit the country, but this was strenuously opposed by the eldest brother,
who suggested that they should rather take turn and patrol the city,
one of them each night, to which they agreed. It happened that the
eldest prince, in the course of his perambulation one night, came past
the hut of a Bráhman, whom he saw gazing out of the open window towards
the heavens, and presently heard him say to his wife that he had just
observed the king’s star obscured by another star, which indicated that
his majesty would die in seven days. His wife asked him how he should
die then, and he replied that a black snake would descend from the sky
on the seventh day, enter the royal bed-chamber by the door that opened
into the courtyard, and bite the king’s toe, thus causing his death.
Then the Bráhman made a sacrifice, and, after prayers and incantations,
he told his wife farther, that the king’s life would be saved if one of
his relations dug pits in the courtyard on the east side of the palace,
filled some with water and the others with milk, and scattered flowers
on the ground between the ponds and the door of the king’s room. He must
be ready, sword in hand, outside the door at the appointed time, when
the snake will come and swim across the ponds and pass over the flowers,
after which it will become comparatively harmless. Then he must strike
and slay the snake with his sword, and taking some of its warm blood
smear it over the king’s toes—thus will he be preserved from evil. The
prince, having treasured these directions in his memory, on the seventh
day follows them exactly, and having taken some of the snake’s blood,
gently opens the door of the king’s chamber and enters, having first tied
a bandage over his eyes, that he should not see the queen. But being thus
blindfolded he smears the blood on the queen’s toes instead of those
of the king, which causes her to awake, and to shriek on seeing a man
glide out of the room, which awakes the king, who recognises his eldest
son as the intruder. The queen, on discovering the blood on her feet
concludes that it was a rákshasa, and becomes frantic with fright, but
her husband sets her mind at rest by telling her that he is now assured
of the wickedness of his sons, who had employed a demon to destroy them
both, and he would have them all executed on the morrow, at which the
queen was highly delighted. Then the king causes the four princes to be
stripped of their royal robes and thrown into a dungeon. In the morning
they are brought into the presence of the king, who gives order for their
immediate execution, and they are being led away when one of them made
signs and prostrated himself before the throne, as if he wished to say
something. “Let him speak,” said the king. “Perhaps he wants to relieve
his heart of some foul secret—let him speak.” The prince then began to
relate the
_Story of the Merchant and his Faithful Dog_,
which differs materially from our story of the Hunter and his Dog (p.
206), but agrees with some versions current in various parts of India: A
young merchant meets four men who are quarrelling over the possession of
a poor dog, which they are dragging about most unmercifully. They tell
him it is not an ordinary dog, for their late father charged them not to
sell it for less than 20,000 rupís. He gives them the money and takes
the dog with him. By-and-by he loses all his wealth through a series of
unfortunate transactions, and borrows 15,000 rupís of another merchant
on the security of his dog. One night a gang of robbers break into the
merchant’s house and carry off all his valuables. They are followed
unobserved by the dog, who watches them dig a pit and bury the treasure
in it, intending to return and share their booty when they might do so
with safety. Next day the dog, by means of signs, leads the merchant to
the spot where his wealth was hidden, and when it is discovered, full
of gratitude to the faithful animal, he writes out an acquittance of the
young merchant’s loan, and having related the great service the dog had
done him expressed a wish to purchase the dog, for which he enclosed a
draft for 30,000 rupís, and putting the letter in the dog’s mouth, sends
him back to his master. As the dog is trotting along he meets his master,
who, concluding that he had run away, and that the merchant would quickly
follow, determined to kill the animal, and if the merchant should come,
he would say: “Give me back my dog, and I will return the money.” But
when he had killed his dog and was about to take the carcase up, in order
to conceal it, the letter dropped from his mouth, and the young merchant,
stricken with remorse, fell down insensible.
Another of the princes then steps forward and relates the
_Story of the Woman who knew the Language of Animals_,
which does not differ very much from the same tale in the Bengalí
collection, cited on p. 505, above, excepting that in place of a
goldsmith the husband is a _shikárí_, or hunter; it is a bracelet set
with five precious stones, not a diamond ring that the woman takes off
the corpse in the river, and a crow, not a serpent, that tells of the
treasure underground; and it is her father-in-law, not her husband, who
accompanies her, and it is her husband who kills her when she comes home,
thinking that she had devoured his father.
The youngest prince next makes his obeisance to his majesty and obtains
leave to relate the
_Story of the King and his Falcon_,
which is similar to that of the King and his Faithful Horse in the
Bengalí version: The king is about to drink of some water he had drawn
from a spring, when his falcon dashed the cup out of his hand, whereupon
the thirsty and enraged king drew his sword and killed his favourite
bird. Afterwards a huge and deadly snake was found coiled up at the head
of the spring, and too late the king saw that the falcon had saved his
life.
His majesty having heard these stories, now began to suspect that his
wife had deceived him regarding his four sons, and when the eldest prince
had explained the whole affair, and shown the king the pits of water and
milk and the body of the serpent, he was fully reconciled to them, and
abdicating the throne in favour of his eldest son, and appointing the
others to be governors of provinces, he retired to the wilderness and
became a hermit.
_The Lost Camel_—p. 194.
Few stories are more widely spread than that of the Lost Camel, which
occurs in the opening of our romance. It was formerly, and perhaps is
still, reproduced in school-books as a reading exercise. Voltaire, in
chapter iii of _Zadig, ou la Destinée_, (the substance of which he is
said to have derived from Geuelette’s _Soirées Bretonnes_), gives a
version in which a lost palfrey and a she-dog are accurately described
by the “sage” from the traces they had left on the path over which they
passed.
The oldest known written form of the story of the Lost Camel is in the
great work of Mas’udí, the celebrated Arabian historian, ‘Meadows of Gold
and Mines of Gems,’ which has not yet been completely translated into
English.—In an Arabic MS. text of the _Alf Layla wa Layla_ (Thousand
and one Nights), brought from the East by Wortley Montague, and now in
the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it forms an incident in the tale of the
Sultan of Yaman’s Three Sons: After their father’s death the three royal
youths quarrel over the succession to the throne, and at length agree
to submit their respective claims to one of their father’s tributary
princes. On the road one of them remarks: “A camel has lately passed this
way, loaded with grain on one side and with sweetmeats on the other.”
The second observes: “And the camel is blind of one eye.” The third
adds: “And it has lost its tail.” The owner comes up to them, and on
hearing their description of his beast forces them to go with him before
the king of the country, to whom they explain how they discovered the
defects of the camel and its lading. In this form it also occurs in
the Turkish collection translated under the title of _Turkish_ Evening
Entertainments—see _ante_, p. 472—with the addition of a woman riding on
the back of the camel, she having got off the animal during a temporary
halt, and left her small footprints in the sand.
In a Siberian version three youths are met by a man, who asks them if
they have seen his camel, to which they reply by describing the colour
and peculiarities of the animal so exactly that he accuses them to the
prince of the country of having stolen it. “I have lost a camel, my
lord,” says he; “and when I met these three young men we saluted, and I
told them of my loss. One of these youths asked me: ‘Was thy camel of
a light colour?’ The second: ‘Was thy camel lame?’ And the third: ‘Was
thy camel not blind of an eye?’ I answered ‘Yes’ to their questions.
Now decide, my lord. It is evident that these young men have stolen my
camel.” Then the prince asked the eldest: “How did you know that the
camel was of a light colour?” He answered: “By some hairs which had
fallen on the ground when it rubbed itself against the trees.” The two
others gave answers similar to those in our version. Then said the prince
to the man: “Thy camel is lost; go and look for it.” So the stranger
mounted his horse and departed.[281]
* * * * *
Captain (now Sir) Richard F. Burton, in his _Scinde, or the Unhappy
Valley_, vol. i, p. 142, thus describes how a _paggi_, or tracker,
sets about discovering a strayed camel: “He ties on his slippers with
packthread, winds his sheet tight round his waist, and squatting upon
the ground scrutinises the footprint before he starts, with all the air
of a connoisseur, making meanwhile his remarks aloud: ‘He is a little,
little camel—his feet are scarcely three parts grown—he treads lightly
with the off foreleg, and turns this toe in—his sole is scarred—he is
not laden—there he goes—there—there, he is off to the jungles of Shaykh
Radhan’.”
_The Hunter and his Dog_—p. 206.
A variant of this story is cited from a Cawnpore newspaper in the
_Asiatic Journal_, vol. xv (new series), Part II, October, 1834, p. 78,
which is to the following effect: A man named Dabí had a dog called
Bhyro, the faithful companion of his travels, who guarded his goods
from robbers while he slept. He wished to go to a distant part of the
country on a speculation in grain, but had not sufficient funds for this
purpose. After much cogitation he at length resolved to pledge his dog
for 1000 rupís, and when he applied to several persons was laughed at
for his folly; but a wealthy merchant named Dyarám gave the money, on
condition that it should be paid back within twelve months, taking the
dog Bhyro in pledge. When eleven months had passed the merchant began
to bewail the stupidity which had induced him to lend so large a sum on
so precarious a security. His relentings were, however, premature. One
dark and dreary night he was aroused from his slumbers by a great noise,
occasioned by the clashing of swords and the barking of Bhyro. A band
of armed men had entered the house with intent to plunder, but before
they could effect their purpose they had been observed by the faithful
Bhyro, who commenced an attack upon them. Before Dyarám could render
any assistance Bhyro had laid two of the robbers dead at his feet; a
third, on the approach of Dyarám, aimed a blow at his head, which was
prevented from taking effect by Bhyro seizing the ruffian by the throat
and laying him prostrate on the ground. After peace was restored Dyarám
congratulated himself on having received Bhyro in pledge for Dabí, by
which act he not only escaped being plundered, but in all probability
murdered. Next morning Dyarám called Bhyro, and, after caressing him,
said: “The service you rendered me last night is more than an equivalent
for the 1000 rupís I lent your master; go, faithful creature, I give you
a free discharge from your obligation as security for him.” Bhyro shook
his head in token that it was impossible for him to go until his master
returned; but Dyarám, comprehending his meaning, soon arranged matters,
by writing a statement of the circumstances, and giving a voucher for the
1000 rupís. This document he tied round Bhyro’s neck, which done, Bhyro
expressed his delight by leaping about in every direction, and, after
licking the hands of Dyarám, darted out of the house and set off in quest
of his master. While these scenes were transpiring in Dyarám’s house,
Dabí was not unmindful of the pledge he had left behind him, and, having
succeeded in his speculation, was returning with all haste to redeem it.
At his last stage homewards he was surprised to see Bhyro approaching
him with every demonstration of joy, but at sight of him Dabí’s rage was
kindled, and repulsing Bhyro as he fawned upon him he thus addressed
him: “O ungrateful wretch! is this the return you have made for my
kindness to you? and is this the manner in which you have established my
character for veracity? You remained faithful to your trust during eleven
months—could you not have held out for thirty short days? You have, by
your desertion from your post, entailed dishonour upon me, and for this
you shall die.” And, so saying, he drew his sword and slew him. After
having committed this deed, he observed a paper tied round Bhyro’s neck,
and having read it, his grief was indescribable. To atone in some measure
for his rash act, he caused poor Bhyro to be buried on the spot where he
fell, and a superb monument to be erected over his remains. To the grave
of Bhyro, even at the present day, resort natives who have been bitten by
dogs, they believing that the dust collected there, when applied to the
wounds, is an antidote for hydrophobia.
It will be observed, on comparison, that the chief difference between
this version and the Kashmírí story, cited in p. 509, is that in the
latter the dog does not venture to attack the robbers, but follows
them to the place where they conceal their plunder and next day leads
his temporary master to the spot, while in the foregoing the dog Bhyro
boldly flies at the rascals, and slays or disables three of them, thus
preserving the house from being robbed. The Tamil version has the dog’s
killing the paramour of the merchant’s wife in place of the robbery, and
the tragical catastrophe of the suicides of all the characters.
A version given from Oudh, by Mr. G. H. Roberts, of Sítápúr, in _Indian
Notes and Queries_, 1887, p. 150, agrees exactly with the Kashmírí story.
_The Bráhman’s Wife and the Mungús_—p. 211.
This story is of world-wide popularity, and the preceding tale of the
Hunter and his Faithful Dog must be considered as an off-shoot from it.
In this country the form in which it is generally known is the legend of
Llewellyn and his hound Gellert, which has been so finely versified by
Spencer. I have adduced many variants of the story in the Appendix to my
_Book of Sindibád_, and have treated it still more fully in my _Popular
Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii. pp. 166-186, where, besides versions found
in the _Sindibád_ cycle (including, of course, the European _Seven
Wise Masters_),[282] are given several Indian forms of the story, and
lastly the oldest known version, from the _Vinaya Pitaka_ of the Chinese
collection of Buddhist books, which, according to Dr. S. Beal—one of
the greatest living authorities on Chinese Buddhist literature—probably
dates from the time of Asoka’s Council, B.C. 230. But indeed the story
may be many thousands of years old, for there is no reason to suppose it
to be of Buddhist invention; and we need not be surprised should it be
discovered some day in an Egyptian papyrus.
This Tamil version is one of three known to me in which it is the mother,
not the father, who kills the faithful animal, the others being one
current in Ceylon, and one from the North-West Provinces, cited in a
very entertaining work entitled _Past Days in India_, and also in the
small collection of Indian tales appended by Vermieux to his _Hermit of
Mottee Jhurna_, second edition, p. 101; it is, moreover, singular in
representing the woman as destroying herself and her husband then killing
his little son and afterwards himself—tragic incidents added by the
author probably to enable the supposed narrator to more forcibly impress
on the king’s mind the terrible consequences of acting in affairs of
moment with inconsiderateness and precipitation.
Among the Malays the story is told in this manner: A man left a tame bear
in charge of his house and of his sleeping child while he was absent from
home. On his return he missed the child and found the house in great
disorder, as if some desperate struggle had taken place, and the floor
was smeared with blood. Hastily concluding that the bear had killed his
child, the enraged father slew the animal with his spear, but almost
immediately afterwards found the carcase of a tiger, which the faithful
bear had defeated and killed, and the child emerged unharmed from the
jangal, where it had taken refuge.
_The Faithless Wife and the Ungrateful Blind Man_—p. 215.
Two very bad characters, and the less my readers have to do with such,
the better for their own peace of mind, I trow!—There is a tale in the
_Kathá Sarit Ságara_ of a woman who cruelly abandoned her helpless
husband in the _jangal_, and went off with a lusty young fellow, but I
am unable to say in which chapter of that most valuable and entertaining
collection it occurs, though I made a special search for it.
As a set-off to the faithless wife of the blind man—who afterwards
proves to be himself an arrant scoundrel—read the touching address of
Damayanti to her husband the ruined Rájá Nala, when he proposes in the
_jangal_ that she should return to her parents and leave him to his fate:
“O king, thinking of thy purpose, my heart trembleth, and all my limbs
become faint. How can I go, leaving thee in the lone woods, despoiled of
thy kingdom and deprived of thy wealth, thyself without a garment on,
and worn with hunger and toil? When, in the deep woods, fatigued and
afflicted with hunger, thou thinkest of thy former bliss, I will, O great
monarch, soothe thy weariness. In every sorrow, there is no medicine
equal unto the wife, say the physicians. It is the truth, O Nala, that I
speak unto thee!”[283]
* * * * *
A story somewhat resembling the incident of the blind man and the honest
Setti will be found in the notes on the ROSE OF BAKÁWALÍ, under the
heading of ‘The Bráhman and the Lion.’
_The Wonderful Mango Fruit_—p. 220.
Analogues of this story are found in a Canarese collection entitled
_Kathá Manjarí_, with a magpie in place of a parrot as the bearer of
the youth-renewing fruit, and in the _Tútí Náma_ (or Parrot-Book) of
Nakhshabí, a work written A.D. 1329, which has not yet been completely
translated into English, and is now generally known from Káderi’s
abridgment.
Fruits having the property of restoring the youth and vigour of those who
ate of them figure in many Asiatic stories—there is a notable instance in
the opening of the Indian collection entitled _Sinhasana Dwatrinsati_,
or Thirty-two (Tales) of a Throne. And from the East the notion was
introduced into the European mediæval romances; for example, in the
_Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux_, “at the bidding of an angel,” I quote
from Mr. Sydney L. Lee’s notes to his edition of the work printed for
the Early English Text Society, “Huon gathers three of the Apples of
Youth, each of which when eaten by a man of eighty or a hundred years old
transforms him to a young man of thirty. Huon bestows one of the apples
on the admiral of Tauris and his white hair and beard grow yellow as he
eats it, and he suddenly becomes a youth of strength and beauty. The
second is eaten by the abbot of Cluny, who is 114 years old, with similar
results. The third rejuvenates Thierry, emperor of Germany.”
_The Poisoned Food_—p. 226.
This is the third instance in the romance of food being poisoned by
serpents, and it is of very common occurrence in Eastern fictions. The
oldest known form of the story is found in a Sanskrit collection entitled
_Vetálapanchavinsati_, or Twenty-five (Tales) of a Vetála, or Vampyre,
which is given fully in the Appendix to my _Book of Sindibád_, and the
story occurs in all the Eastern texts of the Sindibád cycle. This Tamil
version is peculiar in representing an old man as falling a victim to
the poison dropped from a snake’s mouth into food given him by a young
pilgrim, and the imprisoning of the latter in the village temple of Kálí
and so forth. In all other versions known to me, the poison is dropped
into an open dish of milk carried by a slave-girl on her head, and her
master’s guests, partaking of the milk, all perish.
_The Rescued Snake_—p. 231.
With an important difference, this tale resembles that of the Bráhman
and the Lion, p. 254, which is a variant of the world-wide fable of the
Hunter and the Serpent—the difference being that in this case the snake
ultimately rewards its rescuer. In the story of Nala and Damayanti, the
rájá rescues a snake from a _jangal_ fire and carries it some distance
and is about to set it down when the snake says: “Carry me ten steps
farther, and count them as you go.” So Nala proceeds, counting the
steps—one, two, three; and when he says “ten” (Sansk. _dasa_, which means
“bite” as well as “ten”) the snake takes him at his word and bites the
rájá on the forehead, upon which he becomes black. But this the snake
does for Nala’s own benefit, that he should not be recognised in his
degradation.
THE ROSE OF BAKÁWALÍ.
In the Introduction to the present collection will be found the few
particulars which are known regarding this romance and its original
Persian author. There is, I think, strong evidence of its being of Hindú
extraction. In the absence of any similar work in Sanskrit or one of
the vernacular languages of India, we can only suppose that the author
of the _Gul-i Bakáwalí_ drew his materials from various and more or
less distinct, or separate, fictions; and this supposition seems fully
borne out by the somewhat loose arrangement of the later incidents.
The narrative down to the end of the sixth chapter (p. 315), as I have
divided it, is complete in itself: the Prince wins at backgammon the
immense wealth of Dilbar, and her own person besides; he is married to
the beauteous damsel Mahmúda; he procures the magical Rose; he has a
splendid palace erected for him by the fairies, becomes reconciled to
his father, and puts his false brothers to shame; and after a number of
wondrous adventures is united to the fairy Bakáwalí, and “passed his time
with these rosy-lipped beauties, immersed in a sea of bliss.” Surely
this is the usual conclusion of a romance, and all that follows was an
afterthought. It is, of course, quite in keeping with “the fitness of
things” romantic that the hero should have to undergo some tribulation
before becoming possessed of Bakáwalí; but that fairy’s subsequent
punishment by the deity Indra; the hero’s marriage with the princess
Chitrawat; the re-birth of Bakáwalí—which, as I have already remarked,
is quite out of place in a Muslim work, though very proper in a Hindú
story; and the love-affair of Bahrám are evidently incidents which have
been taken out of different tales, albeit we should be sorry to have them
omitted, for they are all very entertaining.
THE MAGICAL FLOWER—p. 242.
The quest of a wonderful flower, or other object, having the virtue
of restoring sight to the blind, or of bestowing perennial youth, or
of bringing back the dying to life and health, is the theme of many
folk-tales. Besides the magical Rose from the garden of the fairy
Bakáwalí, which cured the king’s blindness (p. 271), we have another
instance in the romantic adventures of Hatim Taï (_ante_, p. 467), in
the case of the blind man confined in a cage; and in the same work—but
not mentioned in my epitome of it—we are told that in the course of
Hatim’s Second Adventure he came to the capital of Mahparí, the king of
the fairies, and learned that his son had become blind. Hatim tries the
effect of his talisman on the eyes of the young prince, and it removes
the pain, but not the blindness. He is then informed that there is a tree
that grows amidst the shades of Zulmát [or region of darkness, where
is also the Water of Life], which is named Nandar; and from this tree
distils a liquid of such rare virtue that if even a drop of it could be
procured it would be the means of restoring the prince’s sight. A fairy
in love with Hatim gives him a guard of seven thousand troops, and he
at once sets out on his dangerous journey. Having arrived in the region
of darkness, Hatim takes some of the wondrous liquid, and returning
in safety applies a few drops to the prince’s eyes, when his sight is
immediately restored.
The myth of the Water of Life is of ancient date, and it was probably
introduced into Europe from the East during the Crusades. In Rabbinical
lore it is said that Solomon sent one of his officers for the Water of
Immortality, but when he returned successful the sage monarch would
have none of it, because he did not wish to survive all his female
favourites! According to the Muslim legend, Alexander despatched the
mythical prophet Al-Khizar on a similar errand, but no sooner had he
drank of the water than it disappeared, and this is how Al-Khizar
possesses everlasting youth.
A Fountain of Youth figures prominently in the _fabliau_ which chants the
delights of the Land of Cockaigne; and in Conrad of Wartzburg’s _Trojan
War_ (of the 13th century) Medea obtains water from Paradise to renew
the youth of Jason’s father. In the romance of _Huon of Bordeaux_, the
doughty hero finds the Fount of Youth on Alexander’s Rock, and bathing in
it is at once restored to vigorous health.
The quest of the Rose in the garden of Bakáwalí, to cure the king’s
blindness, finds an analogue in the German tale of the Water of Life,
in the collection of the Brothers Grimm—indeed, they are very closely
allied: A king is sick unto death. The first and the second of his sons
set out in succession to procure for him the Water of Life, but they
behave rudely to a dwarf on the road and he enchants them. The third
son next undertakes the adventure, and meeting the dwarf is civil and
courteous towards him, and in reward the dwarf directs the youth on
his way. Following all the instructions of the dwarf, he comes to a
castle, which he enters, unhurt by the two lions at the gate. In one
room he finds a number of knights in a trance, and taking the rings off
their fingers he puts them on his own. Going into another room he sees
on a table a sword and a loaf, which he also takes. In a third room he
discovers a beautiful damsel on a couch, who welcomes him joyfully, and
says that he should have the kingdom if he would free her from the spell
by which she is bound, and come back in a year and marry her. Returning
homeward, the dwarf tells him that the sword would at a single blow slay
a whole army, and the bread would never fail him. But the brave youth
will not go home without his brothers, and so the dwarf sets them free.
While the three brothers are sailing in a ship, the two elder substitute
for the Water of Life a bottle of sea water, which makes the king worse
when he drinks some of it. Then the two elder brothers give him the real
water and he is cured. But in the end, as in our Tale, the hero turns the
tables on his brethren and marries the princess.
Readers of the _Arabian Nights_ will recollect that Prince Ahmed is
required by his father, at the suggestion of an envious vazír, to get him
some water from the Lion’s Spring, and his bride, the Parí Bánú, directs
him how to win past the lions, and so forth. There can be little doubt
that both the German and the Arabian stories have a common origin. Again,
in the tale of the Envious Sisters, with which our ordinary English
version of the _Arabian Nights_ concludes, the Fountain of Golden Water
has the property of disenchanting all the princes and nobles who had been
turned to stone.—But it were tedious to farther multiply examples.
THE PRINCE AND DILBAR PLAYING BACKGAMMON—p. 250.
From the most remote times of which any records have been preserved,
wine, music, dancing, and _dice_ seem to have gone together in the
East. The ancient Arabs were passionately addicted to gaming, till
Muhammed strictly forbade all games of chance; a prohibition which—like
that against wine-bibbing—has not been so strictly observed by all his
followers, though Muslims are not, perhaps, so much given to gambling as
most other Asiatic peoples. They are excessively fond of chess, which,
however, cannot be included amongst games of pure chance. Of all races,
the Chinese are probably the most inveterate gamblers: they will play at
hazard till they have lost all their possessions, wives, and children,
and finally their own freedom. In our own country the mania for dice-play
was fatally common among the upper and middle classes until within
comparatively recent years, and if all stories be true, gaming with cards
or dice, though forbidden by law, is still only too prevalent, to the
speedy ruin of the deluded votaries of the Goddess of Chance. For it
would appear that, though some gamesters may win and others of course
lose, yet nobody is ever a gainer in the end, and hence we must conclude
that _all_ the winnings go to—the Devil!
The Hindús have always been infatuated gamesters, and of this we have
ample evidence in the noble Indian epic, the _Mahábhárata_, out of which
one or two notable examples may suffice. In the Second Book (_Sabha
Parva_—Effort Chapter), sections lix-lxvi, Yudhisthira, the eldest of
the Pandavas, plays at dice with Shakuni, who by foul means[284] wins
all his wealth, then his kingdom, then his brothers one by one, then
Yudhisthira himself, and finally his spouse Draupadi. In the Third Book
(_Vana Parva_—Forest Chapter), sections lix-lxi, Rájá Nala, infatuated
by Kálí, who had possessed him, plays at dice with his brother Pushkara
and loses his wealth and his kingdom, but refusing to stake his sweet
queen Damayanti he goes accompanied by her into exile. Ultimately, having
exchanged with Vahuka his skill in dice-play for his own wonderful
knowledge of horses, Nala plays again with his brother and wins back his
kingdom.[285]
European fiction furnishes analogous incidents to those above cited. For
example, in the mediæval romance of _Guerni de Monglave_, the hero loses
his kingdom at a game of chess. In W. Harrison Ainsworth’s novel (or
“romance”) of _Old Saint Paul’s_, in the chapter entitled “The Bully and
the Gamester” the latter, after losing all his money, is induced to stake
his wife on a “cast of the ivories”—and his opponent wins. In Prior’s
_Danish Ballads_, ‘Sir Thor and the Maiden Silvermor,’ vol. iii, p.
151 ff., a damsel stakes her own person on a single throw of dice, and
loses.—Other instances occur in the early European romances.
* * * * *
In the latter portion of “All for a Pansa,” in the Rev. J. Hinton
Knowles’ _Folk-Tales of Kashmír_, we have a pretty close parallel to the
incident of the Prince and Dilbar at the game of nard, or backgammon, but
a very ancient version is found in the following Panjábí legend,[286]
which recounts
How Rájá Rasálú Played at Chess With Rájá Sirikap For Their Heads.
News was once brought to King Rasálú that at Kot Bhitaur on the Indus
lived a certain Rájá, Sirikap by name, who was notorious for his
ferocity, and renowned for his skill in chess-playing. King Sirikap
only played with those who would accept his conditions, which were: In
the first game the stakes were to be horse, clothes, and lands. In the
second game the stake was to be the loser’s head. King Rasálú, who could
not bear the thought of a rival in anything, resolved to visit him. So
he called his captains together and said: “I am going to try my luck
against King Sirikap. But if I lose the game and forfeit my head, say,
what will you, my followers, do?” One of the officers answered: “You may
lose the game, and you may lose your head, O king, but one thing is very
certain—if you lose your head, the head of Rájá Sirikap will be forfeited
too. Of this he shall be certified.”
Then the king mounted his horse and rode to Kot Bhitaur, the castle of
the “handsome” Sirikap the Beheader. King Sirikap welcomed his brother
king with every demonstration of affection, and conducted him into his
palace. “O youth,” said he, “you must have come from a long distance.
What is the purpose of your visit?” “My kingdom is Siálkot,” answered
Rasálú. “Your fame as a chess-player kindled my ambition, and I have
come to play with you; only, as I am now fatigued, let us play, if it
please you, to night.” To this Sirikap agreed, and King Rasálú, having
refreshed himself, descended from the mountain rock on which the castle
stood, and walked to the bank of the river. There he saw struggling in
the water some small clusters of ants which were being washed away, and
stooping down he saved them. Then he saw a drowning hedgehog, and, being
a humane man, he saved it also, and one of the attendants begged for it
to amuse the servants in the castle above. Going a few steps farther, he
came to a breakwater, which was close to the castle-rock, and there he
heard a voice proceeding from the cliff: “O sir, you have come to Kot
Bhitaur to play at chess with Rájá Sirikap. But I warn you that he is a
magician.” The astonished attendants looked about them and cried: “What
voice is this?” but they perceived no one. Then they saw on the sand a
representation of the game, well figured, and they said to the king: “O
king—see, here is the game. It is an omen of good fortune. This is your
conquering day.” At this moment the mysterious voice again issued from
the rock: “O prince—for such I perceive you to be—I have been witness of
your humanity. To you I may confide my life, being satisfied that you
will not betray me. Rájá Sirikap is a man of blood—deep, sudden, and
treacherous; but observe what I say, and your life will be saved.” “Speak
on, O hidden one,” answered King Rasálú. “First of all,” continued the
voice, “do you walk along the bank until you see a rat with a black head.
Catch him and bring him here.” The king obeyed, and returning to the
crag he said: “The rat, O friend, I have found, as you said, but now I
would find you.” Climbing up the ledges of the steep rocks, he came to a
roughly-fashioned cell in the face of the cliff, in which he discovered
a lady of noble birth, chained by her feet to the floor. “Who are you?”
said he; “and whence came you here?” She answered him: “I am one of the
five daughters of King Sirikap. My fault was one which I will not reveal
to you now, but my punishment is imprisonment in this rocky cell. Yet I
knew, by my power of divination, that a prince would come from a distant
kingdom, strong and young, and that, having cut off my father’s head, he
would release me. In you I behold the prince of my prophetic dreams.”
“And I will release you,” cried the king; “but first inform me how I am
to be conqueror at the chess-board.”
The princess then gave him full instructions how he should proceed in the
trial of skill which awaited him. “First of all,” said she, “play with
the king only on a Tuesday, as to-day; and, secondly, play only once,
and let the stake be the head of him who loses. You will proceed thus:
Tie the rat with a string, and keep him near you, as you both sit on the
floor, but keep him so that he may be visible. That King Sirikap may not
suspect your design, lean your cheek upon your hand, and call out now
and then: ‘O Rájá Núl! O Rájá Núl!’ for he was the inventor of the game
of Chaupúr,[287] in which you will be engaged. There are two sets of men
of eight pieces each, and they are of two different colours. Now at the
critical point of the game Rájá Sirikap will give a certain signal, and
straightway from his capacious sleeve will issue his magic cat. On her
head she bears a light which renders her invisible, and which is also
invisible to all but the king himself. The effect of the mysterious light
is to throw a glamour over the king’s adversary and to dazzle his eyes,
so that he is unable to see, and during this interval the cat dexterously
disposes the pieces in such a way that at the next move King Sirikap wins
the game, and his adversary forfeits his wager. But do you, O Prince, in
order to guard against surprise, keep the rat secure, and now and then
put your disengaged hand upon it, and now and then take it off, patting
it playfully. The moment the cat comes forth she will make a dash at the
rat, and, coming in contact with your hand, the light will fall to the
ground. Then keep her at bay, and the game will be yours for the cowardly
heart of King Sirikap will begin to quake, and his disordered mind will
ensure his discomfiture.”
Having received his instructions, King Rasálú returned to the palace, and
that night, being the eve of Tuesday, the two kings sat down to play. The
issue of the game for some time was doubtful; but at last it was evident
that a few more moves would decide the result in favour of Rájá Rasálú;
when his rival made a secret signal, and the magic cat, unseen by any
but himself, stole from his sleeve. The moment she did so she caught
sight of the black-headed rat, and, forgetting her duty to her master,
she instantly sprang towards it, but the hand of Rájá Rasálú, chanced to
smite the light from her head and to keep her occupied until he had won
the game.
Then sprang the mighty king to his feet and cried to his trembling rival:
“The game is won and your head is my prize”; and drawing his long sword
he was about to strike off his head, when Sirikap, lifting up his hands,
implored a short respite, that he might enter his inner apartments and
bid farewell to his family. That moment a messenger brought news to him
that his queen had been delivered of a daughter. But he heeded it not.
His perturbed soul was full of schemes as to how he might escape his
impending fate. As he walked sadly from room to room, he said to himself:
“If I hide in my own chambers I shall be discovered.” So this idea he
dismissed from his mind. But in an unfrequented corner his anxious eye
caught sight of a large disused drum, and, disregarding his kingly
dignity, he crept under that, and began to feel himself a little secure.
Rájá Rasálú was meanwhile pacing the hall with impatient strides, waiting
for the return of his adversary. At last he could tarry no longer, so,
calling his captains, he summoned King Sirikap to appear. But no answer
was made to his call. He then began a careful search of the whole of the
castle, feeling satisfied that the king could not have passed his guards
who were on the watch at every post. When he came to the drum, the quick
eye of Rasálú detected that it had been recently moved. “Aha!” cried he,
“the caitiff must be skulking here,” and in another moment he dragged
the dishonoured monarch forth by the heels. Then he handed him over to
his officers. “As he was a king,” said he, “lodge him in his own palace,
but guard him well, for at sunset he must die.” Then turning to Sirikap,
he spurned him, saying: “O villain! hundreds of heads you have smitten
off in your time with your own hand, and all for pastime, yet you never
grieved or shed a tear. And now, when the same fate is to be your own,
you sneak away and hide yourself in a drum.”
Some time after this there entered the royal soothsayers, and they,
addressing their fallen master, said: “Sir, we have sought for the
interpretation of this mystery, why ruin should have visited your house,
and we conclude that all this calamity is on account of your daughter,
whose baneful star has crossed your own. She has come in an evil hour.
Let her now be slain, and let her head be thrown into the Indus, and your
life will be saved.” Sirikap answered: “If my life depends on her, bring
me her head, and mine may yet be saved.” So a slave-girl was despatched
to bring the infant to its father. And as she carried it along from the
apartments of the queen she said: “O what a pretty child! I should like
to save it.” Rájá Rasálú, overhearing her, said: “Whither are you taking
that child?” The slave-girl answered: “This is Rájá Sirikap’s child, born
only this very night. The Bráhman soothsayers have told my master that
his child is the cause of all his misfortunes, and that her head is to be
taken off to save his own.” When Rájá Rasálú looked at the child he loved
it, and became very sorrowful, knowing the power of divination. So he
returned and said: “O Rájá Sirikap, your head shall be spared on certain
conditions: First, you must surrender this infant princess in betrothal
to me. Secondly, you must become my vassal and pay me an annual tribute.
Thirdly, you must consent to have your forehead branded with a red hot
iron, in token of your vassalage. And fourthly, you must discontinue your
bloody games at chess.” To all these conditions King Sirikap was only too
glad to agree. So a treaty was drawn up between the two kings, and it was
confirmed and ratified in the presence of their principal officers.
After this Rájá Rasálú mounted his horse and was riding away when he
thought of the princess in her lonely cell. Turning his horse’s head, he
sought the foot of the cliff and ascended to the cavern. “Of course,”
cried she, when she saw him, “you have won the game? But tell me, have
you cut off my father’s head?” “No,” said he, “I have not.” “What!”
replied she, “have you beaten your antagonist in the game of death, yet
not exacted the penalty of his failure? What luckless man are you?”
Then King Rasálú explained to the princess all the circumstances of
his adventure. “But,” concluded he, “one thing I omitted, namely, to
stipulate for your deliverance from captivity.”
The princess, who expected no less than to be espoused to this handsome
stranger, was overcome with distress. Seeing this, the king, who pitied
her misfortunes, took up a piece of rock and broke her chain, and then,
lifting her over his shoulder, he descended with her from the cavern, and
carried her up to the palace of Rájá Sirikap, her father, who, seeing
company returning and fearing some new calamity, once more endeavoured
to conceal himself. But King Rasálú reassured him, and brought him
forth, and said to him: “Behold, here is your daughter;—now say for what
crime was she imprisoned?” “A certain prince,” answered Sirikap, “came
to play with me, and my rebellious daughter gave him, to sit upon, my
fortunate carpet of state. ‘Aha,’ said I to myself, ‘so, my lady, there’s
treason afloat?’ upon which I ordered her to be perpetually chained and
imprisoned.” “One more condition,” said Rájá Rasálú, with a stern air,
“must be added to the others; it is, that you forgive her, and that you
let me know within three months that you have made a suitable match for
her.” Nor could Rájá Sirikap dare to dispute his new lord’s will, but he
received his daughter and provided suitably for her in accordance with
his pledged word.
Once more King Rasálú mounted his charger, and at the head of his brave
companions, whose lance-heads glittered in the sunlight, and whose
accoutrements clashed merrily, he rode proudly away to his own capital.
With him, in a magnificent litter, travelled the infant daughter of
Sirikap, whose name was Kokilan.[288] She it was, who, in after years,
when she grew to woman’s estate, became his beautiful but ill-fated
consort.[289]
* * * * *
It is not likely that our author adapted his story of the Prince and
Dilbar the courtesan from the foregoing legend of Rájá Rasálú: the fact
that a similar tale is current in Kashmír, as already mentioned, would
seem to indicate that, in more or less different forms, it is known in
various countries of Hindústán. But the Prince’s game with Dilbar, mainly
to rescue his brothers who had fallen into her toils, finds a curious
analogue in the mediæval European romance which recounts the adventures
of four brothers, Agravain, Gueret, Galheret, and Gauvain, all of whom
set out, in different directions, in quest of Lancelot du Lac, according
to the analysis given by Dunlop, in his _History of Fiction_: Agravain,
as a _coup d’essai_, kills Druas, a formidable giant, but is in turn
vanquished by Sorneham, the brother of Druas. His life is spared at the
request of the conqueror's niece, and he is confined in a dungeon, where
his preserver secretly brings him refreshments. Gueret also concludes a
variety of adventures by engaging Sorneham, and being overcome is shut
up in the same dungeon with his brother. Galheret, the third of the
fraternity, comes to a castle where he is invited to play with the lady
at chess, on the condition that if he wins he is to possess her person
and castle, but losing, should become her slave. The chessmen are ranged
in compartments on the floor of a fine hall, are as large as life, and
glitter with gold and diamonds. Each of them is a fairy and moves on
being touched with a talisman. Galheret loses the game, and is confined
with a number of other checkmated wights. Gauvain, however, soon after
arrives, and vanquishes the lady at her own arms; but only asks the
freedom of the prisoners, among whom he finds his brother. Having learned
from an elfish attendant of the lady the fate of his two other brothers,
he equips himself in the array of the chess-king. In this garb he engages
Sorneham, who, being dazzled with the brightness of his attire, is
easily conquered, by which means Agravain and Gueret are delivered from
confinement.
_The Bráhman and the Lion_—p. 254.
There are few fables more widely spread than this, certainly in various
forms, but always with the same result. In another work I have adduced a
number of versions European and Asiatic,[290] and shall content myself
with citing in this place a rather unique version from Mrs. Meer Hasan
Ali’s _Observations on the Mussulmans of India_, vol. ii, p. 330ff.:
A certain man is travelling on horseback through an immense forest, and
observes fire consuming some bushes, in the centre of which is a great
snake, who implores the traveller to save him. The traveller throws down
his horse-bag and the snake creeps into it, and when the horseman takes
it up and releases the snake the latter is about to bite him, and so
forth. Having appealed to the _pípal_-tree and received the same answer
as that of the banyan in our version, the two meet a camel-driver, who
says the snake is right—it is “the way of the world” to return evil for
good, and tells his own story: “I was,” says he, “sole proprietor of a
very fine strong camel, by whose labour I earned a handsome livelihood,
in conveying goods, and sometimes travellers, from place to place, as
fortune served me. One day, returning home through an intricate wood, I
approached a poor blind man, who was seated on the ground lamenting his
hard fate. Hearing my camel’s feet advance he redoubled his cries of
distress, calling loud for help. He told me that he had been attacked by
robbers, and that his boy-guide had been forced from him and taken as a
slave. I seated him on my beast and proceeded with him to the city where
he said he resided. Arriving there, I offered to assist the poor man
to alight, but to my astonishment he began abusing me for my barefaced
wickedness, collected a crowd about us by his cries for help from his
persecutor, declared himself the master of the camel, and accused me of
attempting to rob him now, as I had done his brother before. Hearing this
plausible speech, the people dragged me before the judge, who sentenced
me to be thrust out of the city with threat of greater punishment should
I ever return. Therefore I say, the reward of good is evil.” The fox is
then appealed to with the usual result of leaving the ungrateful snake in
the flames, there “to fry in his own fat.”—This story of the camel-driver
is somewhat analogous to that of the Setti and the Blind Man—_ante_, p.
215ff.
_The Princess and the Dív who exchanged Sexes_—p. 279.
This droll story is of Hindú extraction, and in much the same form is
still current in Southern India. In the “Exposition” prefixed to the Abbé
Dubois’ French translation of the Tamil version of the _Panchatantra_, p.
15, it is given with a few unimportant variations: The name of the king
is Nihla-Kéton,[291] his country is called Anga-Dessa, and his capital,
Barty-Poura. His wife was long sterile, and after many vows and prayers
she at length gave birth to daughters only. Enraged at this, the king
tells his prime minister, Vahaca, that he purposes divorcing his wife
and taking another, and Vahaca tries to dissuade him from such a course.
When the queen is again pregnant the minister offers to take her to his
own house and treat her with every care, to which the king consents. The
queen once more gives birth to a girl, and the prime minister announces
it as a boy, greatly to the king’s delight. He fixes the twelfth day
for the _nama-carna_ (name-giving) and intimates his intention of being
present at the ceremony. But the minister bribes the _púhorita_, or royal
astrologer, to tell the king that in consequence of the unfavourable
aspect of his horoscope he must not see this child or allow it to be
produced in public until it is grown up and married, otherwise dire
calamities threaten both king and country. During 16 years the king
must have his child educated at a distance from the palace, and this is
undertaken by the prime minister. When the child is 15 the minister tells
the king that a wife must be sought out for “him,” and, taking the girl
with him, he leads an army against the city of Pattaly-Poura, and there
demands the king’s daughter as wife to the “son” of King Nihla-Kéton, the
marriage to take place in five days. These terms are accepted.—Meanwhile
a giant-Bráhman (_un géant Brahme_), whose abode is in a large tree in
the vicinity of the invading army, falls in love with the young princess,
and demands her of the prime minister, but Vahaca explains that she is
already betrothed, and therefore cannot be given to him. He then tells
the giant the whole story of the girl’s birth, the concealment of her
sex, and so forth, imploring his aid, and suggesting that he should
give the girl his sex and take hers for five or six nights, till the
wedding and its festivities be over. The good-natured giant consents and
exchanges sexes with the princess. The marriage is duly celebrated, soon
after which the minister, the metamorphosed prince, and the real princess
set out to return home. On the way they visit the giant, and the minister
asks him to resume his proper sex. But he replies that “a neighbouring
genie” had fallen in love with him, as a woman—and so on, as in our
story.
Here, it will be seen on comparing the two versions, the chief
differences are: the minister takes the place of the mother in deceiving
the king as to the sex of the child; the foreign king is compelled to
give his daughter in fear of an invading army; the minister prevails with
the “giant” to exchange sexes with the princess, who does not, as in
our story, go into the forest with the intention of destroying herself
from shame. But in respect of this last incident, we shall find that
our tale adheres more closely to the original than the Tamil version.
The story occurs in the “Udyoga Parva” (Effort Book—the fifth) of the
_Mahábhárata_, sections cxc-cxciii:
SANSKRIT ORIGINAL.
The first and best beloved wife of King Drupada had never borne him a
child, and the king paid his adorations to Siva for years, in order to
obtain the boon of a son. He practised the most austere penances, saying:
“Let a son, and not a daughter, be born unto me, O Mahádeva! I desire a
son, that I may revenge myself on Bhishma.” At length the great deity
said to him: “Thou shalt have a child who shall be female and male.
Desist, O king! It will not be otherwise.” Returning to his wife, he
informed her of this decision of the great Siva—that his child should be
first female and afterwards become male. In due time the wife of Drupada
gave birth to a daughter, in accordance with the decree of Destiny, and
she gave out that the child was a son. Then Drupada caused all the rites
for a male child to be performed in respect of that concealed daughter as
if she were really a son, and the child was named Sikhandin. And no man
in all Kámpilya, save Drupada himself, knew the real sex of the child.
Drupada bestowed great pains on the education of his child, teaching her
writing, and painting, and the like arts. And in arrows and weapons the
child became a disciple of Drona.
Then that royal couple fixed upon the daughter of Hiranyavarman, the
king of the Dasárnas for wife to Sikhandin. And he gave his daughter to
Sikhandin, who, after the marriage, returned to Kámpilya. The daughter
of Hiranyavarman soon came to know that Sikhandin was a woman like
herself, and bashfully informed her nurses and companions of the fact.
Then the nurses sent to the king and represented to him everything about
the imposture, upon which the king was filled with wrath. He was a
powerful monarch, with a great army, not easily to be overcome. And he
despatched a messenger to Drupada, who, taking the king aside, said to
him: “The king of the Dasárnas, O monarch, deceived by thee and wroth at
the insult that thou hast offered him, hath said these words unto thee:
‘Thou hast humiliated me! Without doubt, it was not wisely done by thee.
Thou didst, from folly, solicit my daughter for thy daughter! O wicked
one, reap now the consequence of that act of deception! I will now slay
thee, with all thy relatives and advisers!’” Thus addressed, Drupada,
like a thief caught in a net, could not at first speak. At length he sent
a sweet speech, saying: “This is not so,” in order to pacify the king of
the Dasárnas. But he was not thus to be pacified; and, after consulting
with his ministers, he again sent an envoy to Drupada, saying: “I will
slay thee!” Now King Drupada was not naturally courageous, and the
consciousness of his offence filled him with fear. He took counsel with
his wife as to how they might best escape the wrath of the king of the
Dasárnas, for he was already on the march against him with a large army.
Meanwhile Sikhandin, filled with grief, and saying to herself that it
was solely on her account that her parents were now in such tribulation,
resolved on putting an end to her own life. Having formed this
determination, she left home, full of heavy sorrow, and went into a dense
and solitary forest which was the haunt of a very powerful Yaksha, called
Sthunákarna. From fear of that Yaksha,[292] man never went into that
forest. And within it stood a mansion with high walls and a gateway,
plastered over with powdered earth, and rich with smoke bearing the
fragrance of fried paddy.[293] Entering that mansion, Sikhandin, the
daughter of Drupada, began to reduce herself by foregoing all food for
many days. Thereupon the Yaksha, who was endued with kindness, showed
himself unto her. And he enquired of her, saying: “For what object is
this endeavour of thine? I will accomplish it—tell me without delay.”
Thus asked, the maiden answered him, repeatedly saying: “Thou art unable
to accomplish it.” The Yaksha, however, rejoined: “I am a follower of
the Lord of Treasures [i.e. Kuvera]. I can grant boons, O princess! I
will grant thee even that which cannot be given! Tell me what thou hast
to say.” Thus assured, Sikhandin represented, in detail, everything that
had happened, unto that chief of Yakshas called Sthunákarna. And she
answered: “My father, O Yaksha, will soon meet with destruction. The
ruler of the Dasárnas marcheth against him in rage. That king cased in
golden mail is endued with great might and great courage. Therefore, O
Yaksha, save me, my mother, and my father! Indeed, thou hast already
pledged thyself to relieve my distress. Through thy grace, O Yaksha, I
would become a perfect man! As long as that king may not depart from my
city, so long, O great Yaksha, show me grace!” Hearing these words of
Sikhandin, that Yaksha, afflicted by Destiny, said, after reflection:
“Blessed lady, I will certainly do what thou wishest. Listen, however, to
the condition I make: For a certain period I will give thee my manhood.
Thou must, however, come back to me in due time. Pledge thyself to do
so. Possessed of immense power, I am a ranger of the skies, wandering
at pleasure, and capable of accomplishing whatever I wish. Through my
grace, save thy city and thy kinsmen wholly! I will bear thy womanhood,
O princess! Pledge thy troth to me, and I will do what is agreeable to
thee.” Sikhandin answered: “O holy one of excellent vows! I will give
thee back thy manhood. O wanderer of the night! bear thou my womanhood
for a short time. After the ruler of the Dasárnas has departed from my
city, I will once more become a maiden and thou wilt become a man.” Then
they both made a covenant, and imparted into each other’s body their
sexes. And the Yaksha became a female, while Sikhandin obtained the
blazing form of the Yaksha.
Then Sikhandin, having obtained manhood, entered his city in great joy
and approached his father, to whom he represented everything that had
happened; and Drupada became exceedingly glad, and, along with his
wife, recollected the words of the great Siva. And he forthwith sent a
messenger to the ruler of the Dasárnas, saying: “This my child _is_ a
male. Let it be believed by thee.” Meanwhile the ruler of the Dasárnas
had arrived at Kámpilya, and Drupada sent a messenger who was well versed
in the Vedas. But Hiranyavarman addressed the envoy in these words:
“Say unto that worst of kings: ‘O thou wicked of understanding! having
selected my daughter for the wife of thy daughter, thou shall to-day,
without doubt, behold the fruit of that deception.’” When the envoy
returned and delivered this message to Drupada, he despatched another
Bráhman learned in the Vedas to the ruler of the Dasárnas, who said to
him: “Hear, O king, the words of the ruler of the Pánchálas: ‘This my
child is really a male. Let it be made clear by means of witnesses.’”
Then the king of the Dasárnas sent a number of young ladies of great
beauty to ascertain whether Sikhandin was really a male or a female. And
those ladies, having ascertained the truth, joyfully told the king of
the Dasárnas that Sikhandin was a powerful person of the masculine sex.
Hearing this testimony, Hiranyavarman was filled with joy, and going to
his brother Drupada passed a few days with him in gladness. And the king,
rejoiced as he was, gave Sikhandin much wealth, many elephants, steeds,
and kine. And, worshipped by Drupada as long as he stayed, the Dasárna
king then departed, having rebuked his daughter. And after Hiranyavarman
had departed in joy and with his anger quelled, Sikhandin began to
rejoice exceedingly.
Meanwhile [some time after the exchange of sexes had taken place] Kuvera,
the protector of all the treasures, in the course of a journey came to
the house of Sthuna, the Yaksha, and admiring the garlands of flowers
with which it was bedecked, he asked his followers why it was that Sthuna
did not come out to greet him. And they told him how Sthuna had given his
own manhood to the daughter of Drupada, taking her womanhood in exchange,
and therefore he was ashamed to approach him. Hearing this, Kuvera caused
Sthuna to be brought before him; and Sthuna, wearing a feminine form,
came thither, and stood before him in shame. And Kuvera said: “Since,
humiliating all the Yakshas, thou hast, O thou of sinful deeds, given
away thy own sex to Sikhandin and taken from her, O thou wicked of
understanding, her womanhood—since, O wicked wretch, thou hast done what
hath never been done before by anybody;—therefore, from this day, thou
shalt remain a woman and she shall remain a man!” At these words all
the Yakshas attempted to mollify Kuvera for the sake of Sthuna, saying:
“Set a limit to thy curse!” Then the lord of the Yakshas said: “After
Sikhandin’s death, Sthuna will regain his own form. Therefore let this
high-souled Yaksha be freed from his anxiety.” Having said this, Kuvera
departed with his followers.
And Sthuna, with that curse denounced on him, continued to live there;
and when the time arrived, Sikhandin, without losing a moment, came to
that wanderer of the night. And approaching his presence he said: “I have
come to thee, O holy one!” Sthuna then repeatedly said unto him: “I am
pleased with thee!” Indeed, beholding that prince return to him without
guile, Sthuna told Sikhandin everything that had happened, adding: “O
son of a king, for thee have I been cursed by Kuvera. Go now, and live
happily amongst men, as thou choosest. Thy coming hither and the arrival
of Pulastya’s son [_i.e._ Kuvera] were, I think, both ordained from
beforehand. And this was incapable of being prevented.” Sikhandin then
returned to his city filled with joy.[294]
* * * * *
It is evident that the Persian and the Tamil versions were not derived
directly from the story in the _Mahábhárata_, but from some modern
adaptation, since in both the good-natured dív has a very different
reason from that of the Yaksha Sthuna for retaining his adopted sex.
The chief features of the Sanskrit original are, however, reproduced
in the two variants, if we except the actual marriage of the princess,
the discovery of her sex, and her father’s cognisance of the whole
affair from the first, which do not appear in them.—The story is so
singular that I think it must be orally current in different countries
of India, as well as exist in collections in many of the vernacular
languages; and it would be interesting to see what farther modifications
it has undergone, especially in passing by word of mouth to successive
generations and from place to place.
* * * * *
In M. Dozon’s _Contes Albanais_ No. 14 presents some analogy to the story
of the Exchange of Sexes. Here a man with three daughters and no sons
is called to the wars; he is old, and has no one to take his place. The
first and second daughters express their wish to be married—probably,
though it is not expressly stated, in order that one of their husbands
should go as the substitute for their aged father. But the youngest
assumes a man’s dress and goes to the wars in place of him, and slays
a lamia that had long made a feast on the people once every year, for
which she receives in reward a wonderful talking horse, through whose
cleverness she accomplishes a feat by which she wins a king’s daughter in
marriage. The princess, as in the Sanskrit story and in the well-known
Arabian tale, complains to her parents of the coldness of her “husband,”
and the king lays various snares in hopes of causing the destruction of
the disguised heroine, but her horse saves her from all of them. At
last the king sends her to “the church (_sic_) full of serpents,” to
demand payment of their arrears of tribute, hoping they would kill the
objectionable spouse of his daughter. The money is paid, however, but
the serpents, enraged at having to part with so much treasure, cry out:
“If thou art a girl, become a boy; if thou art a boy, become a girl,”
and there and then the heroine found herself actually changed into a
man; so the serpents thus did her a good turn, instead of the evil one
they intended.—M. Dozon, in his _rapprochements_, cites No. 58 of Hahn’s
collection of Greek popular tales, in which a man is first changed to a
girl, and afterwards, by a giant, back to a man again.
THE PRINCE OBTAINS A SNAKE-GEM—pp. 296, 297.
Precisely the same incident occurs in the Comte de Caylus’ interesting
collection of _Contes Orientaux_, with, strange to say, instead of a
snake, a black bull (“un taureau noir”), and the hero, “having been
brought up in the midst of jewels,” knew that the stone was a real
carbuncle, and it was of a size he had never before seen.[295]
I have already offered some remarks on the common belief in the East from
the most ancient times that serpents have precious stones in their heads
and are the guardians of treasures concealed in the earth (pp. 232 and
297), but the subject is so interesting as being a survival, or rather
relic, of serpent-worship, that I think the following observations by Mr.
M. J. Walhouse, the veteran scholar, in the _Indian Antiquary_ for 1875,
pp. 45, 46, may be reproduced here:
“In the Life of Apollonius Tyanæus [B.C. 3-A.D. 98] are some marvellous
stories of large Indian serpents, which the Indians are said to destroy
as follows: ‘They spread a silken robe, inwoven with golden letters,
before the entrance of the serpent’s cave, and those letters, being
magical, bring on sleep, so that the eyes of the serpent are overcome.
Then with powerful incantations they so allure it as to be able to cast
over it the magical robe, which induces sound sleep. Rushing in, the
Indians cut off its head with an iron axe and take out certain stones
found therein; for the heads of most serpents are said to contain
small stones, very beautiful and endowed with a peculiar lustre and
wonderful virtues. Such a stone was in the ring that Gyges is said to
have possessed.’ This is probably an exaggerated version of the Indian
snake-charming, and one of the earliest notices of it.… The American
Indian tribes believe that in the mountains is a secret valley, inhabited
by chiefs of the rattlesnake species, which grow to the size of large
trees and bear in their foreheads brilliant gems. In Peru is an animal
called carbunculo, which appears only at night. When pursued a valve
opens in its forehead, and a brilliant object becomes visible, dispelling
the darkness and dazzling the pursuers.”
THE PRINCE CONCEALS THE SNAKE-GEM IN HIS THIGH—p. 299.
This singular mode of concealing jewels—into which Asiatics still very
commonly convert their wealth—is said to have been formerly, and perhaps
is yet occasionally, adopted by travellers. We have another instance in
the story of the Young Man who fell in love with a Picture, which occurs
only in the Breslau printed Arabic text of the “Thousand and One Nights,”
where the hero has luckily some jewels in the flesh of his forearm.—And
in the _Toldoth Jeshu_ (already cited in connection with the conflict
between the white and black serpents—p. 475) is the following most
veracious narrative:
“Now at this time the unutterable Name[296] of God was engraved in the
temple on the corner-stone. For when King David dug the foundations he
found there a stone on which the Name of God was engraved, and he took
it and placed it in the Holy of Holies. But as the wise men feared lest
some ignorant youth should learn the Name and be able to destroy the
world—which God avert!—they made by magic two brazen lions, which they
set before the entrance of the Holy of Holies, one on the right, the
other on the left. Now if any one were to go within and learn the holy
Name, then the lions would begin to roar as he came out, so that from
alarm and bewilderment he would lose his presence of mind and forget the
Name.
“And Jeshu left Upper Galilee and came secretly to Jerusalem, and he
went into the Temple and learned there the holy writing; and after he
had written the incommunicable Name on parchment he uttered it, with
intent that he might feel no pain, and then he cut into his flesh and
hid the parchment with its inscription therein. Then he uttered the Name
once more, and made so that his flesh healed up again. And when he went
out at the door the lions roared and he forgot the Name. Therefore he
hasted outside the town, cut into his flesh, took the writing out, and
when he had sufficiently studied the signs he retained the Name in his
memory.”[297]
If there ever was a deliberately trumped-up story, this assuredly is
one—it is altogether absurd and inconsistent. When, I wonder, did King
David dig the foundation of the Temple? Moreover, the temple referred
to by this miserable, malignant scribbler was not that built by the
son of David, but the gorgeous pile erected by King Herod. But indeed
nothing more is needed to show that this idle tale was written for
one sole purpose than the words “lest some ignorant _youth_ should
learn the Name.” Why “some _youth_” only? Was there not any danger of
ignorant, or curious, or evil-minded grown men attempting to acquire
this knowledge?—Then we have the magic lions of brass that were placed
on either side of the entrance of the Holy of Holies! The only “graven
images” we read of as being in the Temple are the cherubim, whose wings
canopied the Ark. It is very evident that this most wretched tract—of
which it is said the Jews themselves are now ashamed—was written during
the later Middle Ages, when belief was so rife in magic images of metal
as guardians of treasure or of some other magical contrivance.
* * * * *
The classical story is well known of Zeus, dreading the wrath of Hera
when Semele gave premature birth to Dionysus (Bacchus), sewing up
the infant in his thigh, where he came to maturity. And we have an
interesting example of the prevalence in India—_mutatis mutandis_—of
Greek and Roman legends, known to every schoolboy, in a folk-tale
contributed to the _Indian Antiquary_ for 1886, p. 367, by (Miss?)
Putlabi D. H. Wadia, in which seven brothers go on a trading voyage,
leaving their little sister, Sunábaí Jái, with their wives, who in their
absence ill-treat her shamefully and appoint her tasks very similar
to those which Venus gave Psyche to do, the last being to bring them
some sea-foam. The poor little maid goes to the shore, and observes her
brothers’ ship coming in, and runs to meet them. One of the brothers,
when she has told her story, cuts open his thigh and having placed
her inside the opening sews it up. When they reach home they ask for
their sister and the wives give an evasive reply, upon which they are
threatened with dire punishment should any accident have happened to the
little one, and the women having confessed their wickedness, the brother
draws Sunábaí Jái out of his thigh.
In the Tamil romance entitled _Madnakámarájankadai_, which has been
translated by my friend Pandit Natésa Sástrí, of Madras, under the title
of _Dravidian Nights Entertainments_, a prince one day sees the daughter
of Indra bathing in a tank, and having purloined her garment takes it
home, cuts open his thigh and puts the celestial robe inside, and then
sews the flesh together. The nymph, like others of the Bird-Maiden class,
had no resource but to follow the hero and become his wife.
From the East, doubtless, the idea was brought to Europe and utilised
in the romance of _Huon of Bordeaux_, where we read that the beard and
molars of the Saracen amír—the procuring of which was the condition of
the hero’s pardon by Charlemagne—were sewed up by Oberon, King of the
Fairies, in the side of Gerames, the uncle of Duke Huon.[298]
BAKÁWALÍ AT INDRA’S COURT—p. 317.
In the Kashmírí tale of Gullala Sháh (Mr. Knowles’ collection), a fair
princess, Panj Phúl, falls in love with the hero, and her father, when he
comes to know of this, transforms her to wood and causes her to be placed
in a public garden, as a warning to other fairy damsels not to bestow
their affections on human beings. Gullala Sháh, instructed by the vazír,
whose daughter he had already married, burns the wood, and pouring water
on the ashes, Panj Phúl, as in Bakáwalí’s case, is restored to life.
BAHRÁM TRANSFORMED INTO A BIRD—p. 346.
In No. 16 of the Burmese collection of tales entitled _Decisions of
the Princess Thoodhamma Tsari_—which has been translated into English
by Capt. T. P. Sparks (Maulmain, 1851), and again by Chr. J. Bandow
(Rangoon, 1881)—a youth is changed into a small parrot by a magic
thread being tied round his neck, and in that form is captured by some
bird-catchers in the king’s garden, and presented as a pet to the
princess, who discovers and removes the thread, when he becomes once
more a handsome young man. Early every morning the princess replaces the
thread and he is again changed to a parrot; at night she takes off the
thread; and thus she continues to amuse herself until the consequences
could not be any longer concealed, but in the sequel the youth is
publicly acknowledged as her husband.
* * * * *
Sometimes the hero of a popular fiction has the power of transforming
himself into a bird or of quitting his own body and animating that of any
dead animal, as in Mr. Natésa Sástrí’s _Dravidian Nights Entertainments_,
pp. 8-18, and the idea is also known to European ballads and romances.
For instance, in Prior’s _Danish Ballads_, iii, 206, we are told how a
knight, to gain access to a lady’s bower, becomes a bird and flies in.
In his notes, Prior refers to the ballad of ‘The Earl of Mar’s Daughter’
(Buchan, i, 49):
“I am a doo the live-lang day,
A sprightly youth at night;
This aye gars me appear mair fair
In a fair maiden’s sight.”
He also refers to the Netherlandish ballad, ‘Vogelritter,’ where a knight
goes to Cyprus and wins the king’s daughter, whom he had previously
visited in the form of a bird, having in his possession a stone which
effects transformations; and to the ‘Lai d’Iwenec’, by Marie de France.
THE THREE DECEITFUL WOMEN—p. 355.
_Page 357_—The crafty mother of the bathman is said to have “practised
for years under the sorceress Shamsah”; probably the witch of the same
name who figures in the story of Táhir, an extract of which will be found
in pp. 494, 495.
* * * * *
_Page 370_—The story of ‘The Sun and the Moon’ (_Mihr ú Máh_), which the
carpenter brags that he knows, is probably the Persian romance of Mihr,
the son of Káhvar Sháh, described in Dr. Rieu’s _Catalogue of Persian
Manuscripts in the British Museum_, vol. ii, p. 765 (Add. 15,099), which
also occurs in Hubbí’s collection, entitled _Hikáyát-i’Ajíb ú Gharíb_,
(already cited on p. 474), of which Dr. Rieu, in the same Catalogue (ii,
759, Or. 237), gives the titles of the first nineteen stories, No. 3
being _Mihr ú Máh_. Dr. Rieu has kindly furnished me with the first part
of this tale:
In the kingdom of the East was a mighty king named Khávar Sháh, who had
no son. He is told by his astrologers that he is predestined to have
a son, provided the mother be a parí (or fairy). On the advice of his
vazír, Rushan Ráï, he asks the help of a devotee called Faylasúf, who
tells him that he should obtain possession of the book of magic which
is kept by the witch Naskas in her castle. All three set out with this
intent, and by means of the Most Great Name (see _ante_, note on p. 163)
obtain entrance into the castle, and on their way release a dove from
its cage. Deceived by the wiles of the witch, they are transformed: the
king, into a lion, the vazír, into a lynx, and the devotee, into a fox;
but plunging into the waters of the Spring of Job, they are restored to
their natural shape, seek refuge in a hollow tree, and are taken out of
it by the bird Rukh (or roc) and carried to the top of a mountain. In the
meanwhile the released dove, who was no other than Rúz-afrúz, daughter
of Farrukhfál, king of the parís, returns to her parents and tells them
of her rescue. Then she goes in search of her deliverers; finds them
asleep, and has them conveyed to her father’s court. Farrukhfál waives
his objection to a marriage which he deemed a _mésalliance_, and the
result in due time is the birth of a prince, called Mihr. The astrologers
prophesy that at the age of eighteen grief will come to him through a
piece of paper. And, in fact, the young man, while out hunting, meets a
youth called Mukhtarí, a rich merchant from Maghrab, who has suffered
shipwreck and has saved nothing but the portrait of Máh, the fair
daughter of Hilál, king of the West. The remainder of the tale deals
with the adventures of the love-struck prince in search of the fair one,
ending, of course, with their happy union.[299]
* * * * *
The tale of ‘Sayf ul-Mulúk and Bady’á ul-Jumál,’ which the carpenter
says he had also heard, occurs in the _Arabian Nights_; the Turkish
story-book _Al-Faraj ba’d al-Shiddah_, or Joy after Distress; the Persian
Tales translated into French by Petis de la Croix, under the title of
_Les Mille et un Jours_; and it also exists as a separate story in
MSS. preserved in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
It recounts how a young prince discovers in his father’s treasury the
portrait of a very beautiful damsel and sets out in quest of her. After
many perilous adventures he finally learns from a jinni that the fair
original of the portrait was one of the concubines of King Solomon and
had, of course, been dead for many ages.
* * * * *
Whether the ‘Road to the Mosque’, which the carpenter says he has
“seen,” be the title of a story, or (as is more likely) that of a
devotional work, I am unable to say, never having seen it alluded to
elsewhere.
_The Trick of the Kází’s Wife_
is a variant of a story found in the Beslau printed Arabic text of the
‘Thousand and One Nights,’ of the Fuller, his Wife, and the Trooper.
It also occurs in the _Historia Septem Sapientum Romæ_, the European
adaptation of the Book of Sindibád, where a crafty Knight of Hungary
plays the part of the carpenter of our story, and a jealous old baron
that of the Kází. The plot of the _Miles Gloriosus_ of Plautus, which
is very similar to the tale of the crafty Knight, in all likelihood
suggested to Boiardo the amusing episode, in his _Orlando Innamorato_,
of Folderico and Ordauro, which, in its turn, was perhaps adapted in the
_Seven Wise Masters_. In my _Book of Sindibád_, p. 343 ff., and in my
_Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii, pp. 214-228, are most of the other
known versions and variants of this story.
_The Trick of the Bazár-Master’s Wife_
has many parallels in Eastern story-books, and the tale seems to have
been, time out of mind, a favourite with Asiatics. In one version there
is no game of _yad est_ between husband and wife. The lady has her lover
concealed in an adjoining apartment, for her husband has come home quite
unexpectedly. But she tells him plainly of the fact, upon which he
demands the key and approaches to open the door of the room, when the
lady bursts into laughter. He pauses in astonishment, and asks the cause
of her merriment, to which she replies: “I cannot help laughing at your
simplicity, in believing that I should have a lover in the next room, and
tell you of it.” The husband returns the key and goes away well pleased.
_The Trick of the Kutwál’s Wife_
resembles the latter part of the Arabian tale of the Fuller, his Wife,
and the Trooper, where the poor husband is also drugged, his hair
is cropped, he is dressed as a soldier, and provided with a letter
recommending him to be enrolled by the governor of Isfahán. In this case,
however, the poor husband is not reclaimed by his artful wife.
* * * * *
Whatever may be the source of this diverting story, it was known in
France as early at least as the 13th century, in the form of _fabliau_
by Haisiau the Trouvère, under the title “Des Trois Dames qui trouverent
un Anel” (Méon’s edition of Barbazan, 1808, tome iii, p. 220ff., and Le
Grand, 1781, tome iv, pp. 163-166), of which the following is the outline:
Three ladies found a ring, and “they swore by Jesu that she should have
it who should best beguile her husband to do a good turn to her lover.”
The _First Lady_, having made her husband drunk, when he is asleep,
causes his head to be shaved, dresses him in the habit of a monk, and
carries him, assisted by her lover, to the entrance of a convent. When
he awakes and finds himself thus transformed he imagines that God, by a
miraculous exercise of his grace, had called him to the monastic life. So
he presents himself before the abbot and requests to be received among
the brethren. The lady hastens to the convent in well-feigned despair,
and is exhorted to be resigned and to congratulate her husband on the
saintly vow he has taken. “Many a good man,” says the poet, “has been
betrayed by woman and her harlotry. This one became a monk in the abbey,
where he remained a very long time. Wherefore, I counsel all people who
hear this story told, that they ought not to trust in their wives, or in
their households, if they have not first proved that they are full of
virtues. Many a man has been deceived by women and their treachery. This
one became a monk against right, who would never have been such in his
life, if his wife had not deceived him.”
The _Second Lady_ had some salted and smoked eels which her husband bade
her cook for dinner on a Friday, but there was no fire in the house.
Under the pretext of going to have them cooked on a neighbour’s fire, she
goes out and finds her lover, at whose house she remains a whole week. On
the following Friday, about the hour of dinner, she enters a neighbour’s
house and asks leave to cook her eels, saying that her husband is angry
with her for having no fire, and that she could not dare to go back lest
he should cut off her head. As soon as the eels are cooked she carries
them home, “piping hot.” The husband asks her where she has been for
the last week, and commences to beat her. She cries for help and the
neighbours come in, and amongst them the one at whose fire the eels had
been cooked, who swears that the wife had only just left her house,
and ridicules the man for his assertion that she had been away a whole
week. The poor husband gets into a great rage and is locked up for a
madman.[300]
The _Third Lady_ proposes to her lover to marry him, and he thinks that
she is merely jesting, seeing she is already married, but she assures
him that she is quite in earnest, and even undertakes that her husband
will give his consent. The lover is to come for her husband and take him
to the house of Dan Eustace, where he has a fair niece, whom the lover
is to pretend he wishes to espouse, if he will give her to him. The lady
will go thither, and she will have made her arrangements with Dan Eustace
before they arrive. Her husband cannot but believe that he has left her
at home, and she will be so apparelled that he cannot recognise her. This
plan is accordingly carried out. The lover asks the lady’s husband for
the hand of his niece in marriage, to which he very willingly consents,
and thus without knowing it makes him a present of his own wife. “All his
life long the lover possessed her, because the husband gave and did not
lend her; nor could he ever get her back.”[301]
“Now tell me true,” adds the poet, “without any lie, and if you would
judge rightly and truly, which one of these three best deserved to have
the ring?”
* * * * *
Le Grand, at the end of his modern French prose abridgment of this
_fabliau_, says that it is told at great length in the tales of the
Sieur d’Ouville, tome iv, p. 255. In the _Facetiæ Bebelianæ_, p. 86,
three women make a wager as to which of them will play the best trick
on her husband. One causes her poor spouse to believe he is a monk, and
he goes and sings mass; the second husband believes that he is dead and
allows himself to be carried on a bier to that mass; and the third sings
in it stark naked, believing he is clothed. It is also found in the
_Convivales Sermones_, t. i, p. 200; in the _Délices de Verboquet_, p.
166; and in the Facetiæ of Lod. Doménichi, p. 172. In the _Contes pour
Rire_, p. 197, three women find a diamond, and the arbiter whom they
select promises it to her who concocts the best device for deceiving her
husband, but the _ruses_, according to Le Grand, are different from those
in the _fabliau_. Possibly from this last mentioned version (if not from
some old Morisco-Spanish tale, for the idea of the story is certainly
of Eastern origin) Isidro de Robles, a Spanish novelist, who wrote
about the year 1666, adapted his tale of ‘The Diamond Ring,’ of which
a translation is given by Roscoe in his _Spanish Novelists_, 1832, vol.
iii, pp. 163-214, and the outline of which is as follows:
In the fair city of Madrid there lived three ladies who were very
intimate friends. One was the wife of Luca Morena, cashier to a wealthy
Genoese merchant; the second was the wife of Diego de Morales, a painter,
employed in decorating one of the monasteries; the third was the wife
of Señor Geloso, an elderly ill-tempered curmudgeon. It happened one
day, when the three ladies were standing near a fountain to see a grand
public procession, that they simultaneously discovered a diamond ring
which glittered under the water, and when one of them took it up, all
three laid claim to it, on various grounds, and they squabbled for its
possession till one of them proposed they should submit the matter to
a count of their acquaintance whom they saw approaching, to which the
others agreed. The count takes charge of the ring and says that it should
be the prize of “whichever of you shall, within the space of the next
six weeks, succeed in playing off upon her husband the most clever and
ingenious trick—always having due regard to his honour.”
The _Cashier’s Wife_ employs an astrologer to waylay her husband on his
road home and tell him that he looks seriously ill; then to feel his
pulse and declare that he will be a dead man within 24 hours, so he had
better put his affairs in order. Somewhat alarmed, he reaches home, takes
little supper and goes to bed, but only to toss restlessly about all the
night. He is off to business earlier than usual next day, and coming home
in the evening meets the vicar of the parish and some friends, who are
also in the plot. They pretend not to see him, but talk to each other
aloud of Luca Moreno’s sudden death, and express very uncomplimentary
opinions as to his state in the other world. In great perplexity, he
continues his way and meets the astrologer and the painter (the latter
is the husband of the second lady, and, strange as it may seem, is also
a party in the plot), talking likewise of his death. He can endure this
no longer, and accosts them, saying that he is not dead, but they affect
to take him for his own ghost and run away. Now he thinks he must be
really dead, though when and how he died he cannot recollect. Arriving at
his house, he finds it shut up, and knocks long and loudly at the door
before the maidservant appears, who asks: “Who is it? You can’t come in,
for master is dead.” “Why,” exclaims the poor cashier, “it is I myself,
your master.” “Who calls at this hour? This is the house of mourning,
for we are all in grief for the loss of our master.” “Hold your tongue,
you jade, and let me in, for I am your master.” She replies that _he_,
poor man, is now engaged counting money in another and a worse world. In
his rage he bursts open the door and walks in. His wife on seeing him
pretends to swoon, but leaving her in the care of the maidservant he goes
down to the pantry to stay his ravenous appetite, and there indulges in a
hearty supper, washed down with copious draughts of wine, and then goes
to bed. In the morning his wife, in gala dress, awakes him, and he thinks
that she is dead also, and asks her when he himself died and was buried.
She says all that she knows is that he buried last night some of the
best wine and dainties provided for the carnival—he must be still drunk
to talk such nonsense. The astrologer and the painter come, and when
they hear his story declare they had not seen him or been from home last
night, and, the vicar and his friends making a similar statement, he is
persuaded the whole affair was a dream, and promises to defray the cost
of a feast on Shrove Tuesday.
It is now the turn of the _Second Lady_ to play a trick upon her husband,
the painter. “For this purpose she concerted a plan with a brother of
hers, who possessed a fine genius for amusing himself at other people’s
expense. In the first place they contrived to have a false door made
at the entrance of the house, on such a plan (then frequently adopted)
that it might be easily substituted for the real door at short notice.
It was brought thither secretly one night, and concealed in a cellar,
while the brother and two friends lay ready to carry on the intended
plot in an upper chamber of the house.” The painter returns home as
usual, and having supped retires to rest. About midnight he is roused
from a deep sleep by the cries of his wife, who pretends to be dying,
and implores him to go for her confessor, and her old nurse, who knew
her constitution. He very reluctantly rises and dresses himself, and
then sets out in quest of the nurse, who lived at the other end of the
town. Meanwhile the old door is removed and the false one substituted,
and above it a sign is placed bearing the words, “House of Public
Entertainment.” Then, according to arrangement, friends of the lady and
a party of musicians with their instruments arrive, in order to “make a
night of it.” The poor painter, after plodding his weary way in quest of
the old nurse, through wind and rain, and knocking at the wrong doors,
at last returns home, drenched to the skin. But what must have been his
amazement to find his house metamorphosed into a tavern and to hear
sounds from within of mirth and revelry! He knocks at the door, however,
and a head is thrust out of an upper window and a voice orders him to be
off, for the house is full. When he says that the house is his own, he
is told it has been a tavern for the last 15 years and is finally made
to beat a retreat by two dogs being let loose on him. Betaking himself
to his friend Señor Geloso (whose turn is yet to come), he relates
to him all his strange adventures. His friend thinks he is drunk and
accommodates him for the night in his house. Next morning they go to the
painter’s house, which has been restored to its former appearance, and
when he tells them of what had happened to him the previous night, his
wife and her friends assure him that the affair must have been the effect
of sorcery, at the same time his loving spouse reads him a severe lecture
on his debauched way of life, staying out o’ nights and so forth. It is
finally agreed to say no more about the matter.
The trick played on the jealous, ill-tempered husband of the _Third
Lady_ bears a striking resemblance to that of the Kutwál’s wife—_mutatis
mutandis_. Having plied him with wine till he is “dead drunk,” she sends
for her brother, prior of the convent of Capuchins, who comes (as
arranged) with the lay brethren, and, after his head has been shaved
and he has been dressed in the monastic garb, they carry him off to
the convent and place him in a cell. When he awakes he is perplexed at
the change that has taken place in his person and place of abode. In
brief, he is flogged next day for contumacy and sentenced to eight days’
imprisonment, with bread and water. This term expired, he is sent out
with one of the monks to beg alms, and in the course of their rounds
they come to his own house, where seeing his wife at a window he rushes
in and embraces her. The lady, of course, raises a great outcry, and the
servants and neighbours hasten to her assistance. The monk explains that
he is a crazy brother who fancies every pretty woman he sees is his wife,
and leads him back to the convent, where he is again soundly flogged
and put upon a new course of bread and water, so long that his hair and
beard were grown again. One night he is treated to a fine supper and a
bottle of wine containing an opiate, and, when he is asleep, is carried
back to his house, and on awaking next morning and telling his wife of
all that he had undergone as a monk, she persuades him that it was but
a distempered dream, and he, glad to find himself in his own house,
promises to treat her in future with all respect and full confidence in
her virtue.
The three ladies proceed next day to the dwelling of the count and
relate the tricks they had played their husbands. He says that he cannot
possibly give the preference to any one of them—they are all equally
clever—but as the ring is really one he had himself lost the very day
when they found it, he must ask them to accept and divide amongst
themselves a purse containing three hundred pistoles, and so the ladies
take their leave of the count, in every way satisfied.
THE KÁZI AND THE MERCHANT’S WIFE—p. 414.
The latter part of this story will at once remind the reader of the tale
of Alí Khoja and the Merchant of Baghdád in our common English version
of the _Arabian Nights_,[302] in which Alí Khoja, before setting out on
the pilgrimage to Makka, places a thousand gold pieces in a jar and fills
it up with olives, and gives it into the custody of a merchant with whom
he was intimate, as a jar of olives merely; and the merchant after the
Khoja had prolonged his absence far beyond the usual time opened the
jar to take out of it some olives for his wife, who had wished for that
fruit, and finding the gold underneath abstracted it, and substituted
fresh olives. The story is too well known to require the repetition of
the subsequent details—how judgment was at first given in favour of the
merchant, but was afterwards reversed, as in our story of the Kází, by
the acuteness of a boy.
It seems to have been a favourite pastime from ancient times for Asiatic
youngsters to play at “the King and his Ministers.” In the apocryphal
Arabic gospel of the Saviour’s Infancy we read: “In the month of Adar,
Jesus, after the manner of a king, assembled the boys together. They
spread their clothes on the ground and he sat down on them. Then they
put on his head a crown made of flowers, and like chamber-servants stood
in his presence, on the right and on the left, as if he was a king, and
whoever passed that way was forcibly dragged by the boys, saying: ‘Come
hither and adore the king; and then go away.’” This passage finds a
very remarkable parallel in the Mongolian tales of Ardshi Bordshi—the
second part of Miss Busk’s _Sagas from the Far East_, derived from
Jülg’s _Mongolische Märchen_, as follows: “In the neighbourhood of his
[_i.e._ Ardshi Bordshi’s] residence was a hill where the boys who were
tending the calves were wont to pass the time by running up and down.
But they had also another custom, and it was that whichever of them won
the race was king for the day—an ordinary game enough, only that when
it was played in this place the boy-king thus constituted was at once
endowed with such extraordinary importance and majesty that every one
was constrained to treat him as a real king. He had not only ministers
and dignitaries among his play-fellows, who prostrated themselves before
him, and fulfilled all his behests, but whoever passed that way could not
choose but pay him homage also.”
The Rev. J. Hinton Knowles, in a note to his _Folk-Tales of Kashmír_,
thus describes the game of “Vazír Pádisháh,” also called “Suhul,” as it
is played by the boys in Kashmír:
“It is generally played by four youngsters. Four little sticks are
provided, of which the bark on one side is peeled off. Any of the four
children throws first. If one should throw three sticks so that they all
fall on the bark side, then he is appointed _pádisháh_, or king; but if
not, they all try and throw till some one succeeds. The next thing is to
find out the _vazír_. He who throws the sticks so that one of them falls
with the bark side up, but the other three with the peeled sides up, is
appointed to this office. Then an _asúr_, or thief, has to be fixed upon.
He who throws so that two of his sticks fall with the bark side upwards
is proclaimed the thief. Lastly a _sayd_, or honest man, has to be found.
This part he has to play who throws the sticks so that three of them fall
with the bark side upwards. If it should happen that all four of them
fall with the bark sides up, that thrower has to try again.[303]
“Pádisháh, vazír, asúr, and sayd being known, the real play begins.
The asúr, or thief, is brought before the king by the vazír, who says:
‘O king, peace and health to you; here is a thief.’ The king replies:
‘Whence has he come?’ Then the vazír tells him the whole case, and
punishment has to be inflicted on the criminal. This is the most amusing
part of the whole play. ‘Give him Bangálí cannon,’ says the king, and
the vazír kicks the prisoner’s buttocks; or the king says: ‘Bring a dog
in his place from the Ladák,’ when the vazír takes the prisoner a short
distance, and then holding him by the ear pulls him back, while the
prisoner barks like a dog; or the king says: ‘Take out the spindle,’ when
the vazír draws a line with his thumb-nail on the inside of the arm from
the elbow-joint to the wrist, and then hits the arm over the line as hard
as he can with the first and second fingers of his right hand. There are
many other words of punishment too numerous to mention here.”
Not a few Eastern stories turn upon the wonderful acuteness of boys in
solving difficult questions which have perplexed the profound minds of
their “grave and reverend” seniors. The reader will find a number of
examples cited in my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, vol. ii, pp. 10,
12-14, one of which, a Mongolian tale, is analogous to that of the
Arabian story of Alí Khoja’s “pot of olives.”
THE HIDDEN TREASURE—p. 442.
The indirect source of this story is probably the following tale, from
the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, vol. i, p. 298, of Prof. C. H. Tawney’s
translation, published at Calcutta a few years ago:
There is a city named Srávastí, and in it there lived in old time a
king of the name of Prasenajit, and one day a strange Bráhman arrived
in that city. A merchant, thinking he was virtuous because he lived on
rice in the husk, provided him a lodging there in the house of a Bráhman.
There he was loaded by him every day with presents of unhusked rice and
other gifts, and gradually by other great merchants also, who came to
hear his story. In this way the miserly fellow gradually accumulated a
thousand dínars, and going to the forest he dug a hole and buried it in
the ground, and he went every day and examined the spot. Now one day he
saw that the hole in which he had hidden his gold had been re-opened,
and that all the gold was gone. When he saw that hole empty, his soul
was smitten, and not only was there a void in his heart, but the whole
universe seemed to be a void also. And then he came crying to the Bráhman
in whose house he lived, and when questioned he told him his whole story;
and he made up his mind to go to a holy bathing-place and starve himself
to death. Then the merchant who supplied him with food, hearing of it,
came there with others, and said to him: “Bráhman, why do you long to die
for the loss of your wealth? Wealth, like an unseasonable cloud, suddenly
comes and goes.” Though plied by him with these and similar arguments, he
would not abandon his fixed determination to commit suicide, for wealth
is dearer to the miser than life itself. But when the Bráhman was going
to the holy place to commit suicide, the king Prasenajit himself, having
heard of it, came and asked him: “Bráhman, do you know of any mark by
which you can recognise the place where you buried your dínars?” When the
Bráhman heard that, he said: “There is a small tree in the wood there;
I buried that wealth at its foot.” When the king heard that he said: “I
will find the wealth and give it back to you, or I will give it you from
my own treasury; do not commit suicide, Bráhman.” After saying that,
and so diverting the Bráhman from his intention of committing suicide,
the king entrusted him to the care of the merchant, and retired to his
palace. There he pretended to have a headache, and sending out the
doorkeeper he summoned all the physicians in the city by proclamation
with beat of drum. And he took aside every single one of them and
questioned him privately in the following words: “What patients have you
here, and how many, and what medicines have you prescribed for each?” And
they thereupon, one by one, answered all the king’s questions. Then one
among the physicians, when his turn came to be questioned, said this:
“The merchant Mátridatta has been out of sorts, O king, and this is the
second day that I have prescribed for him _nágabalá_” [the plant _Uraria
Lagopodioides_]. When the king heard that he sent for the merchant and
said to him: “Tell me who fetched you the _nágabalá_?” The merchant said:
“My servant, your highness.” When the king got this answer from the
merchant he quickly summoned the servant and said to him: “Give up that
treasure belonging to a Bráhman, consisting of a store of dínars, which
you found when you were digging at the foot of a tree for _nágabalá_.”
When the king said this to him the servant was frightened, and confessed
immediately; and bringing those dínars, left them there. So the king for
his part summoned the Bráhman, and gave him, who had been fasting in the
meanwhile, his dínars, lost and found again, like a second soul external
to his body. Thus the king by his wisdom recovered to the Bráhman his
wealth, which had been taken away from the tree, knowing that that simple
grew in such spots.
* * * * *
Many stories of hidden treasure being stolen and recovered by a clever
device are current in Europe as well as in the East. For example, in
No. 74 of the _Cento Novette Antiche_, the oldest Italian collection of
tales, a blind beggar conceals 100 florins under the floor of a church,
and is observed by a sharper who next day takes the money away. When the
blind man finds his treasure gone, he stands at the church-door at the
time of service and bids his boy watch all who enter the church and let
him know if any one should regard him (the beggar) as if with peculiar
interest. The sharp-witted boy observes a man looking at his father and
smiling, and when the beggar learns the name of the man, he scrapes
acquaintance with him, tells him that he has 100 florins concealed under
the floor of the church, and expects to receive 100 more in the course of
a day or two, which he had lent out; and begs his new friend to meet him
on such a day when they would lift the stone and deposit the additional
money. The sharper, thinking to get this other sum as well, went
privily and replaced the 100 florins he had stolen, and the blind man,
anticipating he would do so, returned at night and took away his money,
resolving to part with it no more.—The same story is found in the Breslau
printed Arabic text of the ‘Thousand and one Nights’, and is translated
by Mr. John Payne in his _Tales from the Arabic_, and also by Sir Richard
F. Burton in the first volume of his _Supplemental Nights_, under the
title of “The Melancholist and the Sharper.” A short version is given
in Gladwin’s _Persian Moonshee_; and another analogous story of buried
treasure will be found in Roscoe’s _Spanish Novelists_, ed. 1832, vol.
iii, p. 215-234, entitled “A Prodigious Adventure,” by Isidro de Robles.
THE DEAF MAN AND HIS SICK FRIEND—p. 446.
Readers who are not familiar with the Kurán may like to see in English
the Muslim “Lord’s Prayer,” called _Al-Fátihá_, which the Deaf Man
recited in presence of his sick friend, so this is it, from Rodwell’s
translation, p. 11:
“IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE COMPASSIONATE, THE MERCIFUL!
Praise be to God, Lord of the worlds!
The compassionate, the merciful!
King on the day of reckoning!
Thee [only] do we worship, and to thee do we cry for help.
Guide thou us on the straight path!
The path of those to whom thou hast been gracious; with whom thou
art not angry, and who go not astray.”
This _sura_ is esteemed as the quintessence of the Kurán, and is recited
several times in the course of each of the five daily prayers, and on
many other occasions.
* * * * *