to me." "I know, I know," she answered; "I caused your death, but I
brought you to life again. Let the past be forgotten; come home with
me, and my father and mother will welcome you as a son."
He replied, "No, I must return first to my own home a while. Do you
rather return there now with me, for it is a long time since I left
it, and afterward we will come again to your father's kingdom."
To this Panch-Phul Ranee agreed. It took them, however, a long time to
find their way out of the jungle. At last they succeeded in doing so,
for none of the wild animals in it attempted to injure them, so
beautiful and royal did they both look.
When they reached the banyan tree, where the Rajah had left the two
parrots, the old parrot called out to him, "So you have come back at
last! We thought you never would, you were such a long time away!
There you went, leaving us here all the time, and after all doing no
good, but only getting yourself killed. Why didn't you do as we
advised you, and jump up nicely?"
"Well, I'm sure," said the Rajah, "yours is a hard case; but I beg
your pardon for keeping you waiting so long, and now I hope you'll
take me and my wife home."
"Yes, we will do that," answered the parrots; "but you had better get
some dinner first, for it's a long journey over the seven seas."
So the Rajah went to the village close by and bought food for himself
and the Panch-Phul Ranee. When he returned with it, he said to her, "I
fear the long journey before us for you; had you not better let me
make it alone, and return here for you when it is over?" But she
answered, "No! what could I, a poor weak woman, do here alone? and I
will not return to my father's house till you can come, too. Take me
with you, however far you go; only promise me you will never leave
me." So he promised her, and they both, mounting the parrots, were
carried up in the air across the seven seas, across the Red Sea, on,
on, on, a whole year's journey, until they reached his father's
kingdom, and alighted to rest at the foot of the palace garden. The
Rajah, however, did not know where he was, for all had much changed
since he left it some years before.
Then a little son was born to the Rajah and Panch-Phul Ranee. He was a
beautiful child, but his father was grieved to think that in that
bleak place there was no shelter for the mother or the baby. So he
said to his wife, "I will go to fetch food for us both, and fire to
cook it with, and inquire what this country is, and seek out a place
of rest for you. Do not be afraid; I shall soon return." Now, far off
in the distance, smoke was to be seen rising from tents which belonged
to some conjurors and dancing-people, and thither the Rajah bent his
steps, feeling certain he should be able to get fire, and perhaps
food also, from the inhabitants. When he got there, he found the place
was much larger than he had expected--quite a good-sized village, in
fact--the abode of Nautch people and conjurors. In all the houses the
people were busy, some dancing, some singing, others trying various
conjuring tricks or practising beating the drum, and all seemed happy
and joyful.
When the conjurors saw him, they were so much struck with his
appearance (for he was very handsome) that they determined to make
him, if possible, stay among them, and join their band. And they said
one to another, "How well he would look beating the drum for the
dancers! All the world would come to see us dance, if we had such a
handsome man as that to beat the drum."
The Rajah, unconscious of their intentions, went into the largest hut
he saw, and said to a woman who was grinding corn, "Bai, give me a
little rice, and some fire from your hearth." She immediately
consented, and got up to fetch the burning sticks he asked for; but
before she gave them to him, she and her companions threw upon them a
certain powder, containing a very potent charm; and no sooner did the
Rajah receive them than he forgot about his wife and little child, his
journey, and all that had ever happened to him in his life before;
such was the peculiar property of the powder. And when the conjurors
said to him, "Why should you go away? stay with us, and be one of us,"
he willingly consented to do so.
All this time Panch-Phul Ranee waited and waited for her husband, but
he never came. Night approached without his having brought her any
food or news of having found a place of shelter for her and the baby.
At last, faint and weary, she swooned away.
It happened that that very day the Ranee (Panch-Phul Ranee's husband's
mother) lost her youngest child, a fine little boy of only a day old;
and her servants took its body to the bottom of the garden to bury it.
Just as they were going to do so, they heard a low cry, and, looking
round, saw close by a beautiful woman lying on the ground, dead, or
apparently so, and beside her a fine little baby boy. The idea
immediately entered their heads of leaving the dead baby beside the
dead woman, and taking her living baby back with them to the palace;
and so they did.
When they returned, they said to their mistress, "Your child did not
die; see, here it is--it got well again," and showed her Panch-Phul
Ranee's baby. But after a time, when the Ranee questioned them about
it, they told her the whole truth; but she had become meanwhile very
fond of the little boy, and so he continued in the palace and was
brought up as her son; being, in truth, her grandson, though she did
not know it.
Meantime the palace Malee's wife went out, as her custom was every
morning and evening, to gather flowers. In search of them she wandered
as far as the jungle at the bottom of the garden, and there she found
the Panch-Phul Ranee lying as dead, and the dead baby beside her.
The good woman felt very sorry, and rubbed the Ranee's cold hands and
gave her sweet flowers to smell in hopes that she might revive. At
last she opened her eyes, and seeing the Malee's wife, said, "Where am
I? Has not my husband come back? and who are you?"
"My poor lady," answered the Malee's wife, "I do not know where your
husband is. I am the Malee's wife, and coming here to gather flowers,
I found you lying on the ground, and this your little baby, who is
dead; but come home with me, I will take care of you."
Panch-Phul Ranee answered, "Kind friend, this is not my baby; he did
not die; he was the image of his father, and fairer than this child.
Someone must have taken him away, for but a little while ago, I held
him in my arms, and he was strong and well, while this one could never
have been more than a puny, weakly infant. Take me away; I will go
home with you."
So the Malee's wife buried the dead child and took the Panch-Phul
Ranee to her house, where she lived for fourteen years; but all that
time she could gain no tidings of her husband or her lost little boy.
The child, meanwhile, grew up in the palace, and became a very
handsome youth. One day he was wandering round the garden and chanced
to pass the Malee's house. The Panch-Phul Ranee was sitting within,
watching the Malee's wife cook their dinner.
The young Prince saw her, and calling the Malee's wife, said to her,
"What beautiful lady is that in your house? and how did she come
there?" She answered, "Little Prince, what nonsense you talk! there is
no lady here." He said again, "I know there is a beautiful lady here,
for I saw her as I passed the open door." She replied, "If you come
telling such tales about my house, I'll pull your tongue out." For she
thought to herself, "Unless I scold him well, the boy 'll go talking
about what he's seen in the palace, and then perhaps some of the
people from there will come and take the poor Panch-Phul Ranee away
from my care." But while the Malee's wife was talking to the young
Prince, the Panch-Phul Ranee came from the inner room to watch and
listen to him unobserved; and no sooner did she see him than she could
not forbear crying out, "Oh, how like he is to my husband! The same
eyes, the same shaped face and the same king-like bearing! Can he be
my son? He is just the age my son would have been had he lived."
The young Prince heard her speaking and asked what she said, to which
the Malee's wife replied, "The woman you saw, and who just now spoke,
lost her child fourteen years ago, and she was saying to herself how
like you were to that child, and thinking you must be the same; but
she is wrong, for we know you are the Ranee's son." Then Panch-Phul
Ranee herself came out of the house, and said to him, "Young Prince, I
could not, when I saw you, help exclaiming how like you are to what my
lost husband was, and to what my son might have been; for it is now
fourteen years since I lost them both." And she told him how she had
been a great Princess, and was returning with her husband to his own
home and how her little baby had been born in the jungle, and her
husband had gone away to seek shelter for her and the child, and fire
and food, and had never returned; and also how, when she had fainted
away, someone had certainly stolen her baby and left a dead child in
its place; and how the good Malee's wife had befriended her, and taken
her ever since to live in her house. And when she had ended her story
she began to cry.
But the Prince said to her, "Be of good cheer; I will endeavour to
recover your husband and child for you; who knows but I may indeed be
your son, beautiful lady?" And running home to the Ranee (his adopted
mother), he said to her, "Are you really my mother? Tell me truly; for
this I must know before the sun goes down." "Why do you ask foolish
questions?" she replied; "have I not always treated you as a son?"
"Yes," he said; "but tell me the very truth; am I your own child, or
the child of someone else, adopted as yours? If you do not tell me, I
will kill myself." And so saying, he drew his sword. She replied,
"Stay, stay, and I will tell you the whole truth; the day before you
were born I had a little baby, but it died; and my servants took it to
the bottom of the garden to bury it, and there they found a beautiful
woman lying as dead, and beside her a living infant. You were that
child. They brought you to the palace, and I adopted you as my son,
and left my baby in your stead." "What became of my mother?" he asked.
"I cannot tell," answered the Ranee; "for, two days afterward, when I
sent to the same place, she and the baby had both disappeared, and I
have never since heard of her."
The young Prince, on hearing this, said, "There is in the head Malee's
house a beautiful lady, whom the Malee's wife found in the jungle,
fourteen years ago; that must be my mother. Let her be received here
this very day with all honour, for that is the only reparation that
can now be made to her."
The Ranee consented, and the young Prince went down to the Malee's
house himself to fetch his mother to the palace.
With him he took a great retinue of people, and a beautiful palanquin
for her to go in, covered with rich trappings; also costly things for
her to wear, and many jewels and presents for the good Malee's wife.
When Panch-Phul Ranee had put on her son's gifts, and come out of the
Malee's poor cottage to meet him, all the people said there had never
been so royal-looking a queen. As gold and clear crystal are lovely,
as mother-of-pearl is exquisitely fair and delicate-looking, so
beautiful, so fair, so delicate appeared Panch-Phul Ranee.
Her son conducted her with much pomp and state to the palace, and did
all in his power to honour her; and there she lived long, very
happily, and beloved by all.
One day the young Prince begged her to tell him again, from the
beginning, the story of her life, and as much as she knew of his
father's life; and so she did. And after that, he said to her, "Be no
longer sad, dear mother, regarding my father's fate; for I will send
into all lands to gather tidings of him, and maybe in the end we shall
find him." And he sent people out to hunt for the Rajah all over the
kingdom, and in all neighbouring countries--to the north, to the
south, to the east and to the west--but they found him not.
At last, after four years of unsuccessful search, when there seemed no
hope of ever learning what had become of him, Panch-Phul Ranee's son
came to see her, and said, "Mother, I have sent into all lands seeking
my father, but can hear no news of him. If there were only the
slightest clue as to the direction in which he went, there would still
be some chance of tracing him, but that, I fear, cannot be got. Do you
not remember his having said anything of the way which he intended to
go when he left you?" She answered, "When your father went away, his
words to me were, 'I will go to fetch food for us both, and fire to
cook it with, and inquire what this country is, and seek out a place
of shelter for you. Do not be afraid--I shall soon return.' That was
all he said, and then he went away, and I never saw him more."
"In what direction did he go from the foot of the garden?" asked the
Prince. "He went," answered the Panch-Phul Ranee, "toward that village
of conjurors close by. I thought he was intending to ask some of them
to give us food. But had he done so, he would certainly have returned
in a very short time."
"Do you think you should know my father, mother darling, if you were
to see him again?" asked the Prince. "Yes," answered she, "I should
know him again." "What!" he said, "even when eighteen years have gone
by since you saw him last? Even though age and sickness and want had
done their utmost to change him?" "Yes!" she replied; "his every
feature is so impressed on my heart that I should know him again
anywhere or in any disguise."
"Then let us," he said, "send for all those people in the direction of
whose houses he went away. Maybe they have detained him among them to
this day. It is but a chance, but we can hope for nothing more
certain."
So the Panch-Phul Ranee and her son sent down orders to the conjurors'
village that every one of the whole band should come up to the palace
that afternoon--not a soul was to stay behind. And the dancers were to
dance and the conjurors to play all their tricks for the amusement of
the palace inmates.
The people came. The nautch girls began to dance--running, jumping,
and flying here, there and everywhere, some up, some down, some round
and round. The conjurors conjured and all began in different ways to
amuse the company. Among the rest was one wild, ragged-looking man,
whose business was to beat the drum. No sooner did the Panch-Phul
Ranee set eyes on him than she said to her son, "Boy, that is your
father!" "What, mother!" he said, "that wretched-looking man who is
beating the drum?" "The same," she answered.
The Prince said to his servants, "Fetch that man here." And the Rajah
came toward them, so changed that not even his own mother knew him--no
one recognized him but his wife. For eighteen years he had been among
the nautch people; his hair was rough, his; beard untrimmed, his face
thin and worn, sunburnt and wrinkled; he wore a nose-ring and heavy
earrings, such as the nautch people have; and his dress was a rough,
common cumlee. All traces of his former self seemed to have
disappeared. They asked him if he did not remember he had been a Rajah
once, and about his journey to Panch-Phul Ranee's country. But he
said, No, he remembered nothing but how to beat the drum--Rub-a-dub!
tat-tat! tom-tum! tom-tum! He thought he must have beaten it all his
life.
Then the young Prince gave orders that all the nautch people should be
put into jail until it could be discovered what part they had taken in
reducing his father to so pitiable a state. And sending for the wisest
doctors in the kingdom, he said to them, "Do your best and restore the
health of this Rajah, who has to all appearance lost both memory and
reason; and discover, if possible, what has caused these misfortunes
to befall him." The doctors said, "He has certainly had some potent
charm given to him, which has destroyed both his memory and reason,
but we will do our best to counteract its influence."
And so they did. And their treatment succeeded so well that, after a
time, the Rajah entirely recovered his former senses. And they took
such good care of him that in a little while he regained his health
and strength also, and looked almost as well as ever.
He then found to his surprise that he, Panch-Phul Ranee, and their
son, had all this time been living in his father's kingdom. His father
was so delighted to see him again that he was no longer unkind to him,
but treated him as a dearly beloved, long lost son. His mother also
was overjoyed at his return, and they said to him, "Since you have
been restored to us again, why should you wander any more? Your wife
and son are here; do you also remain here, and live among us for the
rest of your days." But he replied, "I have another wife--the
Carpenter's daughter--who first was kind to me in my adopted country.
I also have there nine hundred and ninety-eight talking wooden
parrots, which I greatly prize. Let me first go and fetch them."
They said, "Very well; go quickly and then return." So he mounted the
two wooden parrots which had brought him from the Panch-Phul Ranee's
country (and which had for eighteen years lived in the jungle close to
the palace), and returned to the land where his first wife lived, and
fetched her and the nine hundred and ninety-eight remaining wooden
parrots to his father's kingdom. Then his father said to him, "Don't
have any quarrelling with your half-brother after I am dead" (for his
half-brother was son of the old Rajah's favourite wife). "I love you
both dearly, and will give each of you half of my kingdom." So he
divided the kingdom into two halves, and gave the one-half to the
Panch-Phul Ranee's husband, who was the son of his first wife, and the
other half to the eldest son of his second but favourite wife.
A short time after this arrangement was made, Panch-Phul Ranee said to
her husband, "I wish to see my father and mother again before I die;
let me go and see them." He answered, "You shall go, and I and our son
will also go." So he called four of the wooden parrots--two to carry
himself and the Ranee, and two to carry their son. Each pair of
parrots crossed their wings; the young Prince sat upon the two wings
of one pair; and on the wings of the other pair sat his father and
mother. Then they all rose up in the air, and the parrots carried them
(as they had before carried the Rajah alone), up, up, up, on, on, on,
over the Red Sea, and across the seven seas, until they reached the
Panch-Phul Ranee's country.
Panch-Phul Ranee's father saw them come flying through the air as
quickly as shooting stars, and much wondering who they were, he sent
out many of his nobles and chief officers to inquire.
The nobles went out to meet them, and called out, "What great Rajah is
this who is dressed so royally, and comes flying through the air so
fast? Tell us, that we may tell our Rajah."
The Rajah answered, "Go and tell your master that this is Panch-Phul
Ranee's husband, come to visit his father-in-law." So they took that
answer back to the palace, but when the Rajah heard it, he said, "I
cannot tell what this means, for the Panch-Phul Ranee's husband died
long ago. It is twenty years since he fell upon the iron spears and
died; let us, however, all go and discover who this great Rajah really
is." And he and all his court went out to meet the new-comers, just as
the parrots had alighted close to the palace gate. The Panch-Phul
Ranee took her son by the one hand and her husband by the other, and
walking to meet her father, said, "Father, I have come to see you
again. This is my husband who died, and this boy is my son." Then all
the land was glad to see the Panch-Phul Ranee back, and the people
said, "Our Princess is the most beautiful Princess in the world, and
her husband is as handsome as she is, and her son is a fair boy; we
will that they should always live among us and reign over us."
When they had rested a little, the Panch-Phul Ranee told her father
and mother the story of all her adventures from the time she and her
husband were left in the palkees in the jungle. And when they had
heard it, her father said to the Rajah, her husband, "You must never
go away again; for see, I have no son but you. You and your son must
reign here after me. And behold, all this great kingdom will I now
give you, if you will only stay with us; for I am old and weary of
governing the land."
But the Rajah answered, "I must return once again to my own country,
and then I will stay with you as long as I live."
So, leaving the Panch-Phul Ranee and her son with the old Rajah and
Ranee, he mounted his parrots and once more returned to his father's
land. And when he had reached it, he said to his mother, "Mother, my
father-in-law has given me a kingdom ten thousand times larger than
this. So I have but returned to bid you farewell and fetch my first
wife, and then I must go back to live in that other land." She
answered, "Very well; so you are happy anywhere, I am happy, too."
He then said to his half-brother, "Brother, my father-in-law has given
me all the Panch-Phul Ranee's country, which is very far away;
therefore I give up to you the half of this kingdom that my father
gave to me." Then, bidding his father farewell, he took the
Carpenter's daughter back with him (riding through the air on two of
the wooden parrots, and followed by the rest) to the Panch-Phul
Ranee's country, and there he and his two wives and his son lived very
happily all their mortal days.
_Schippeitaro_
Long, long ago, in the days of fairies and giants, ogres, and dragons,
valiant knights and distressed damsels; in those good old days, a
brave young warrior went out into the wide world in search of
adventures.
For some time he went on without meeting with anything out of the
common, but at length, after journeying through a thick forest, he
found himself, one evening, on a wild and lonely mountain side. No
village was in sight, no cottage, not even the hut of a charcoal
burner, so often to be found on the outskirts of the forest. He had
been following a faint and much overgrown path, but at length, even
that was lost sight of. Twilight was coming on, and in vain he strove
to recover the lost track. Each effort seemed only to entangle him
more hopelessly in the briers and tall grasses which grew thickly on
all sides. Faint and weary he stumbled on in the fast gathering
darkness, until suddenly he came upon a little temple, deserted and
half ruined, but which still contained a shrine. Here at least was
shelter from the chilly dews, and here he resolved to pass the night.
Food he had none, but, wrapped in his mantle, and with his good sword
by his side, he lay down, and was soon fast asleep.
Toward midnight he was awakened by a dreadful noise, At first he
thought it must be a dream, but the noise continued, the whole place
resounding with the most terrible shrieks and yells. The young warrior
raised himself cautiously, and seizing his sword, looked through a
hole in the ruined wall. He beheld a strange and awful sight. A troop
of hideous cats were engaged in a wild and horrible dance, their yells
meanwhile echoing through the night. Mingled with their unearthly
cries the young warrior could clearly distinguish the words:
Tell it not to Schippeitaro!
Listen for his bark!
Tell it not to Schippeitaro!
Keep it close and dark!