XXV.

THE FAN PRINCE.

To notesIN a country there lived a king who had a wife and seven daughters. One day he called all his daughters to him, and said to them, “My children, who gives you food? and by whose permission do you eat it?” Six of them answered, “Father, you give us food; and by your permission we eat it.” But the seventh and youngest said, “Father, God gives me my food; and by my own permission I eat it.” This answer made her father and mother very angry with their youngest daughter. They said, “We will not let our youngest child stay with us any longer.” And her father called some servants and said to them, “Get a palanquin ready, and put my youngest daughter into it; then carry her away to the jungle, and there leave her.”

The servants got the palanquin ready, put the youngest princess into it, and carried her into the jungle. There they put the palanquin down and said to her, “We are going to drink some water.” “Go home now,” said the girl, “as my father ordered you to do.” They left her, therefore, in the jungle alone, and went back to the king’s palace.

The girl prayed to God and worshipped him; then she went to sleep for a little while in her palanquin. When she awoke, it was evening, and she found in her palanquin a jar of water and some food on a plate which God had sent her while she slept. She knew that God had sent her this nice dinner, and thanked him and worshipped him. Then she bathed her face and hands in a little of the water, and ate and drank, and went to sleep quietly in her palanquin as night had come.

This little princess had always been a very gentle girl, and had always done what was right, and been very good, so God loved her dearly. While she slept, therefore, he made a beautiful palace for her on the jungle-plain where she was lying in her palanquin. God made a garden and tank for her, too. When the princess woke in the morning, and got out of her palanquin, she saw the palace standing by its tank in a beautiful garden. “I never saw that palace before,” she said. “It was not here last night.” She went into the garden, and servants met her and made her salaams. The palace was far finer than her father’s; and when she went into it she found it full of servants. “To whom does this palace belong?” she asked. “To you,” they answered. “God made all this for you last night, and he sent us to wait on you and be your servants.” (Now, they were all men, not angels, that God had sent to take care of her.) The princess thanked God, and worshipped him.

A few days later, her father heard that in the jungle to which he had sent her a beautiful palace and garden and tank had suddenly appeared, and that in this palace she was living; and he said, “Yes; my daughter told me the truth: it is God who gives us everything. I know it is he who gave her this beautiful house.” So some time passed, and the princess lived in her palace in the jungle; but her father did not go to see her.

One day he said to himself, “To-day I will go and eat the air in another country, and I will go by water.” So he ordered a boat to be got ready, and he went to his six daughters, and told them he was going away for a little while. “What would you like me to bring you from this other country?” he said. “I will bring you anything you would like to have.” Some of them wanted jewels, a necklace, a pair of earrings, and so on; and some wanted silk stuffs for sárís and other clothes. Then the king remembered his youngest child, and thought, “I must send to her, and see what she would like.” He called one of his servants, and told him to go to the jungle to his youngest daughter and say, “Your father is going to eat the air of another country. He wishes to know what you would like him to bring back for you.”

The servant found the little princess reading her prayer-book. He gave her the king’s message. She said, “Sabr” (that is wait), for she meant him to wait for her answer till she had finished reading her prayers. The servant, however, did not understand, but went away at once to the king and told him, “Your daughter wants you to bring her Sabr.” “Sabr?” said the king; “what is Sabr? Never, mind, I will see if I can find any Sabr; and if I do, I will bring it for her.”

The king then went in his boat to another country. There he stayed for a little while and bought the jewels and silks for his six elder daughters. When he thought he should like to go home again, he went down to his boat and got into it. But the boat would not move, because he had forgotten one thing; the thing his youngest daughter had asked for.

Suddenly he remembered he had not got any Sabr. So he gave one of his servants four thousand rupees, and told him to go on shore, and go through the bazar, and try and find the Sabr, and he was to give the four thousand rupees for it.

The man went to the bazar and asked every one if they had Sabr to sell. Then he asked if they could tell him what it was. “No,” they said, “but our king’s son is called Sabr; you had better speak to him.”

The servant went to Prince Sabr. “Our king’s youngest daughter,” he said, “has asked her father to bring her Sabr, and the king has given me four thousand rupees to buy it for her; but I cannot get any, and no one knows what it is.” The prince said, “Very good. Give this little box to your king, and tell him to give it to his youngest daughter. But it is only the princess who has asked for Sabr who is to open the box.” Then he told the man to keep the four thousand rupees as a present from him.

The servant went back to the boat to the king and gave him the box, saying, “In this is the Sabr,” and he told him Prince Sabr said no one but the youngest princess was to open it. And now the boat moved quite easily, and the king journeyed home safely.

He gave his six eldest daughters the presents he had brought for them, and sent the little box to his youngest daughter. She said, “My father has sent me this. I will look at it by and by.” Then she put it away and forgot it. At the end of a month she found the little box, and thought, “I will see what my father has sent me,” and opened the box. In it was a most lovely little fan. She was very much pleased, and fanned herself with it, and at once a beautiful prince stood before her.

The princess was delighted. “Who are you? Where did you come from?” she said. “My name is Prince Sabr,” he answered. “Your father came to my father’s country, and he said you had asked him to bring you Sabr, so I gave him this little fan for you. I am obliged to come to whoever uses this little fan with the right side turned outwards. And when you want me to go away, you must turn the right side of the fan towards you and then fan yourself with it.” The little princess said, “Very good. And so your name is Prince Sabr?” They talked together for some time. Then she turned her fan, so that the wrong side was outside, and fanned herself with it, and the prince disappeared.

This went on for a month. The princess used to fan herself with the right side turned outwards, and then Prince Sabr came to her. When she turned her fan wrong side outwards and fanned herself, then he vanished.

One day the prince said to her, “I should like to marry you. Will you marry me?” “Yes,” she answered. Then she wrote a letter to her father and mother and six sisters, in which she said, “Come to my wedding. I am going to marry Prince Sabr.” They all came. Her father was very glad that she married Prince Sabr, and said, “I see it is true that God loves my youngest daughter.”

The day of the wedding her six sisters said to her, “To-day we will not let the servants make your bed. We will make it ourselves for you.” “I have plenty of servants to make it,” she said; “but you can do so if you like.” Her sisters went to make the bed. They took a glass bottle and ground it into a powder, and they spread the powder all over the side where Prince Sabr was to lie. This they did because they were angry at their youngest sister being married, while they, who were older, were not married, and they thought, being her elders, they should have married first, especially as they had lived in their father’s palace, and been cared for, while she was cast out in the jungle.

When the wedding was over, and Prince Sabr and his wife had gone to bed, the prince became very ill, from the glass powder going into his flesh. “Turn your fan the wrong way and fan yourself quickly, that I may go home to my father’s country,” he said to her, “for I am very ill, and dare not remain here.” So she fanned herself at once with the fan turned the wrong way. Then he went home to his father, and was very ill for a long while. The poor princess knew nothing of the glass powder.

Her father and mother and sisters went home after the wedding, and left the princess alone in her palace. Every day she turned her fan the right side outwards and fanned and fanned herself; but Prince Sabr never came. He was far too ill. One day she cried a great deal, and was very, very sad. “Why does my prince not come to me?” she said. “I don’t know where he is, or what has become of him.” That night she had a dream, and in her dream she saw Prince Sabr lying very ill on his bed.

When she got up in the morning she thought she must go and try to find her prince. So she took off all her beautiful clothes and jewels, and put on a yogí’s dress. Then she mounted a horse and set out in the jungle. No one knew she was a woman, or that she was a king’s daughter; every one thought she was a man.

She rode on till night, and then she had come to another jungle. Here she got off her horse, and took it under a tree. She lay down under the tree and went to sleep. At midnight she was awakened by the chattering of a parrot and a mainá, who came and sat on the tree knowing she was lying underneath.

The mainá said to the parrot, “Parrot, tell me something.” The parrot said, “Prince Sabr is very, very ill in his own country. The day he was married, the bride’s six sisters took a glass bottle and ground it to powder. Then they spread the powder all over the prince’s bed, so that when he lay down it got into his flesh. The glass powder has made him very ill.” “What will make him well?” said the mainá; “what will cure him?” “No doctors can cure him,” said the parrot; “no medicine will do him any good: but if any one slept under this tree, and took some of the earth from under it, and mixed it with cold water, and rubbed it all over Prince Sabr, he would get well.”

All this the princess heard. She got up and longed for morning to come. When it was day she took some of the earth, mounted her horse, and rode off. She went on till she came to Prince Sabr’s country. Then she asked to whom the country belonged; she was told it was Prince Sabr’s father’s country, “but Prince Sabr is very ill.”

“I am a yogí,” said the princess, “and I can cure him.” This was told to the king, Prince Sabr’s father. “That is very good,” he said. “Send the yogí to me.” So the little princess went to the king, who said to her, “My son is very, very ill; make him well.” “Yes,” she said, “I will make him well. Bring me some cold water.”

They brought her the cold water, and she mixed it with the earth she had got from under the tree. This she rubbed all over the prince. For three days and nights she rubbed him with it. After that he got better, and in a week he was quite well. He was able to talk, and could walk about as usual.

Then the yogí said, “Now I will go back to my own country.” But the king said to her, “First you must let me give you a present. You shall have anything that you like. As many horses, or sepoys, or rupees as you want you shall have; for you have made my son well.” “I want nothing at all,” said the princess, “but Prince Sabr’s ring, and the handkerchief he has with his name worked on it.” She had given him both these things on their wedding day. Prince Sabr’s father and mother went to their son and begged him to give the handkerchief and ring to the yogí; and he did so quite willingly. “For,” he thought, “were it not for that yogí, I should never see my dear princess again.”

The yogí took the ring and handkerchief and went home. When she got there, she took off her yogí’s dress and put on her own beautiful clothes. Then she turned her fan right side outwards, and fanned herself with it, and immediately her Prince Sabr stood by her. “Why did you not come to me before?” she said. “I have been fanning and fanning myself.” “I was very ill, and could not come,” said Prince Sabr. “At last a yogí came and made me well, and as a reward I gave him my ring and handkerchief.” “It was no yogí,” said the princess. “It was I who came to you and made you well.” “You!” said the prince. “Oh, no; it was a yogí. You were sitting here in your palace while the yogí came and cured me.” “No, indeed,” she said; “I was the yogí. See, is not this your ring? is not this your handkerchief with your name worked on it?” Then he believed her, and she told him of her dream, and her journey in the yogí’s dress, and the birds’ talk, and all that had happened.

And Prince Sabr was very happy that his wife had done so much for him, and they lived happily together.

Told by Múniyá.

XXVI.

THE BED.

To notesIN a country there was a grain merchant’s son, whose father and mother loved him so dearly that they did not let him do anything but play and amuse himself while they worked for him. They never taught him any trade, or anything at all; for they never reflected that they might die, and that then he would have to work for himself. When he was old enough to be married, they found a wife for him, and married him to her. Then they all lived happily together for some years till the father and mother both died.

Their son and his wife lived for a while on the pice his father and mother had left him. But the wife grew sadder and sadder every day, for the pice grew fewer and fewer. She thought, “What shall we do when they are all gone? My husband knows no trade, and can do no work.” One day when she was looking very sorrowful, her husband asked her, “What is the matter? Why are you so unhappy?” “We have hardly any pice left,” she answered, “and what shall we do when we have eaten the few we have? You know no trade, and can do no work.” “Never mind,” said her husband, “I can do some work.”

So one day when there were hardly any pice left, he took an axe, and said to his wife, “I am going out to-day to work. Give me my dinner to take with me, and I will eat it out of doors.” She gave him some food, wondering what work he had; but she did not ask him.

He went to a jungle, where he stayed all day, and where he ate his dinner. All day long he wandered from tree to tree, saying to each, “May I cut you down?” But not a tree in the jungle gave him any answer: so he cut none down, and went home in the evening. His wife did not ask where he had been, or what he had done, and he said nothing to her.

The next day he again asked her for food to take with him to eat out of doors, “for,” he said, “I am going to work all day.” She did not like to ask him any questions, but gave him the food. And he took his axe, and went out to a jungle which was on a different side to the one he had been to yesterday. In this jungle also he went to every tree, and said to it, “May I cut you down?” No tree answered him; so he ate his dinner and came home.

The next day he went to a third jungle on the third side. There, too, he asked each tree, “May I cut you down?” But none gave him any answer. He came home therefore very sorrowful.

On the fourth day he went to a jungle on the fourth side. All day long he went from tree to tree, asking each, “May I cut you down?” None answered. At last, towards evening, he went and stood under a mango-tree. “May I cut you down?” he said to it. “Yes, cut me down,” answered the tree. God loved the merchant’s son and wished him to grow a great man, so he ordered the mango-tree to let itself be cut down.

Now the grain merchant’s son was happy, for he was quite sure he could make a bed, if he only had some wood; so he hewed down the mango-tree, put it on his head, and carried it home. His wife saw him coming, and said to herself, “He is bringing home a tree! What can he be going to do with a tree?”

Next morning he took the tree into one of the rooms of his house. He told his wife to put food and water to last him for a week in this room, and to make a fire in it. Then he went up to the room, and said to her, “You are not to come in here for a whole week. You are not to come near me till I call you.” Then he went into the room and shut the door. The whole week long his wife wondered what he could be doing all alone in that room. “I cannot see into it,” she said to herself, “and I dare not open the door. I wonder what he is about.”

By the end of the week the grain merchant’s son had carved a most beautiful bed out of the mango-tree. Such a beautiful bed had never been seen. Then he called his wife, and when she came he told her to open the door, and when she opened it he said, “See what a beautiful bed I have made.” “Did you make that bed?” she said. “Oh, what a beautiful bed it is! I never saw such a lovely bed!”

He rested that day, and on the day following he took the bed to the king’s palace, and sat down with it before the palace gate. The king’s servants all came to look at the bed. “What a bed it is!” they said. “Did any one ever see such a bed! It is a beautiful bed. Is it yours?” they asked the merchant’s son. “Is it for sale? Who made it? Did you make it?” But he said, “I will not answer any of your questions. I will not speak to any of you. I will only speak to the king.” So the servants went to the king and said to him, “There is a man at your gate with a most beautiful bed. But he will not speak to any of us, and says he will only speak to you.” “Very good,” said the king; “bring him to me.”

When the grain merchant’s son came before the king with his bed, the king asked him, “Is your bed for sale?” “Yes,” he said. “What a beautiful bed it is!” said the king. “Who made it?” “I did,” he said. “I made it myself.” “How much do you want for it?” said the king. “One thousand rupees,” answered the merchant’s son. “That is a great deal for the bed,” said the king. “I will not take less,” said the merchant’s son. “Good,” said the king, “I will give you the thousand rupees.” So he took the bed, and the merchant’s son said to him, “The first night you pass on it, do not go to sleep. Take care to keep awake, and you will hear and see something.” Then he took the rupees home to his wife, who was frightened when she saw them. “Are those your rupees?” she said. “Where did you find such a quantity of rupees?” “The king gave them to me for my bed,” he said. “I am not a thief; I did not steal them.” Then she was happy.

That night the king lay down on his bed, and at ten o’clock he heard one of the bed’s legs say to the other legs, “Listen, you three. I am going out to see the king’s country. Do you all stand firm while I am away, and take care not to let the king fall.” “Good,” the three legs answered; “go and eat the air, and we will all stand fast, so that the king does not fall while you are away.”

Then the king saw the leg leave the bed, and go out of his room door. The leg went out to a great plain, and there it saw two snakes quarrelling together. One snake said, “I will bite the king.” The other said, “I will bite him.” The first said, “No, you won’t; I will climb on to his bed and bite him.” “That you will never do,” said the second. “You cannot climb on to his bed; but I will get into his shoe, and then when he puts it on to-morrow morning, I will bite his foot.”

The bed-leg came back and told the other legs what it had seen and heard. “If the king will shake his shoe before he puts it on to-morrow morning,” it said, “he will see a snake drop out of it.” The king heard all that was said.

“Now,” said the second bed-leg, “I will go out and eat the air of the king’s country. Do you all stand firm while I am away.” “Go,” the others answered; “we will take care the king does not fall.” The second bed-leg then went out, and went to another plain on which stood a very old palace belonging to the king, and the wind told it the palace was so ruinous that it would fall and kill the king the first time he went into it: the king had never once had it repaired. So it came back and told the three other legs all about the palace and what the wind had said. “If I were the king,” said the second bed-leg, “I would have that palace pulled down. It is quite ready to fall; and the first time the king goes into it, it will fall on him and kill him.” The king lay, and listened to everything. As it happened, he had forgotten all about his old palace, and had not gone near it for a long time.

Then the third bed-leg said, “Now I will go out and see all the fun I can. Stand firm, you three, while I am away.” He went to a jungle-plain on which lived a yogí. Now there was a sarai[5] not far off in which lived a woman, the wife of a sepoy, whose husband had gone a year ago to another country, leaving her in the sarai. She was so fond of the yogí, that she used to come and talk to him every night. That very day her husband came back to her, and therefore it was later than usual when she got to the yogí; so he was very vexed with her. “How late you are to-night,” he said. “It is not my fault,” she answered. “My husband came home to-day after having been away a year, and he kept me.” “Which of us do you love best?” asked the yogí; “your husband or me?” “I love you best,” said the woman. “Then,” said the yogí, “go home and cut off your husband’s head, and bring it here for me to see.” The sepoy’s wife went straight to the sarai, cut off her husband’s head, and brought it to the yogí. “What a wicked woman you are to do such a thing at my bidding!” he said. “Go away at once. You are a wicked woman, and I do not want to see you.” She took the head home, set it again on the body and began to cry. All the people in the sarai came to see what was the matter. “Thieves have been here,” she said, “and have killed my husband, and cut off his head,” and then she cried again. The third bed-leg now went back to the palace, and told the others all it had seen and heard. The king lay still and listened.

The fourth bed-leg next went out to see all it could, and it came to a plain on which were seven thieves, who had just been into the king’s palace, and had carried off his daughter on her bed fast asleep; and there she lay still sleeping. They had, too, been into the king’s treasury and had taken all his rupees. The fourth bed-leg came quickly back to the palace, and said to the other three legs, “Now, if the king were wise he would get up instantly and go to the plain. For some thieves are there with his daughter and all his rupees which they have just stolen out of his palace. If he only made haste and went at once, he would get them again.”

The king got up that minute, and called his servants and some sepoys, and set off to the plain. He shook his shoe before he put it on, and out tumbled the snake (the other had quietly gone into the jungle, and not come to the palace); so he saw that the first bed-leg had spoken the truth.

When he reached the plain he found his daughter and his rupees, and brought them back to his palace. The princess slept all the time, and did not know what had happened to her. The king saw the fourth leg had told the truth. The thieves he could not catch, for they all ran away when they saw him coming with his sepoys.

The king sent men to the old palace to pull it down. They found it was just going to fall, and would have fallen on any one who had entered it, and crushed him. So the second bed-leg had told the truth.

When the king was sitting in his court-house he heard how during the night thieves had gone into the sarai and killed a sepoy there and cut off his head. Then he sent for the sepoy’s wife, and asked her who had killed her husband. “Thieves,” she said. The king was very angry, for he was sure the third bed-leg had told the truth as the other three legs had done. So he ordered the man to be buried; and bade his servants make a great wooden pile on the plain, and take the woman and burn her on it. They were not to leave her as long as she was alive, but to wait till she was dead.

He next sent for the grain merchant’s son, and said to him, “Had it not been for your bed, I should this morning have been bitten by a snake; and, perhaps, killed by my old palace falling on me, as I did not know it was ready to fall, and so might have gone into it. My daughter would certainly have been stolen from me; and a wicked woman been still alive. So now, to-morrow, bring as many carts as you like, and I will give you as a present as many rupees as you can take away on them in half a day.”

Early the next morning the merchant’s son brought his cart and took away on them as many rupees as he could in half a day. His wife was delighted when she saw the money, and said, “My husband only worked for one week, and yet he earned all these rupees!” And they lived always happily.

Told by Múniyá, February 23rd, 1879.

XXVII.

PÁNWPATTÍ RÁNÍ.

To notesIN a country a big fair was held, to which came a great many people and Rájás from all the countries round. Among them was a Rájá who brought his daughter with him. Opposite their tent another tent was pitched, in which lived a Rájá’s son. He was very beautiful; so was the little Rání, the other Rájá’s daughter.

Now, the Rájá’s son and the Rájá’s daughter did not even know each other’s names, but they looked at each other a great deal, and each thought the other very beautiful. “How lovely the Rájá’s daughter is!” thought the prince. “How beautiful the Rájá’s son is!” thought the princess.

They lived opposite each other for a whole month, and all that time they never spoke to each other nor did they speak of each other to any one. But they thought of each other a great deal.

When the month was over, the little Rání’s father said he would go back to his own country. The Rájá’s son sat in his tent and watched the servants getting ready the little Rání’s palanquin. As soon as the princess herself was dressed and ready for the journey, she came out of her tent, and took a rose in her hand. She first put the rose to her teeth; then she stuck it behind her ear; and lastly, she laid it at her feet. All this time the Rájá’s son sat in his tent and looked at her. Then she got into her palanquin and was carried away.

The Rájá’s son was now very sad. “How lovely the princess is!” he thought. “And I do not know her name, or her father’s name, or the name of her country. So how can I ever find her? I shall never see her again.” He was very sorrowful, and determined he would go home to his country. When he got home he laid himself down on his bed, and night and day he lay there. He would not eat, or drink, or bathe, or change his clothes. This made his father and mother very unhappy. They went to him often, and asked him, “What is the matter with you? Are you ill?” “I want nothing,” he would answer. “I don’t want any doctor, or any medicine.” Not one word did he say to them, or to any one else, about the lovely little Rání.

The son of the Rájá’s kotwál[6] was the prince’s great friend. The two had always gone to school together, and had there read in the same book; they had always bathed, eaten, and played together. So when the prince had been at home for two days, and yet had not been to school or seen his friend, the kotwál’s son grew very anxious. “Why does the prince not come to school?” he said to himself. “He has been here for two days, and yet I have not seen him. I will go and find out if anything is the matter. Perhaps he is ill.”

He went, therefore, to see the prince, who was lying very miserable on his bed. “Why do you not come to school? Are you ill?” asked his friend. “Oh, it is nothing,” said the prince. “Tell me what is the matter,” said the kotwál’s son; but the Rájá’s son would not answer. “Have you told any one what is the matter with you?” said the kotwál’s son. “No,” answered the prince. “Then tell me,” said his friend; “tell me the truth: what is it that troubles you?”

“Well,” said the prince, “at the fair there was a Rájá who had a most beautiful daughter. They lived in a tent opposite mine, and I used to see her every day. She is so beautiful! But I do not know her name, or her father’s name, or her country’s name; so how can I ever find her?” “I will take you to her,” said his friend; “only get up and bathe, and eat.” “How can you take me to her?” said the prince. “You do not even know where she is; so how can you take me to her?” “Did she never speak to you?” said the kotwál’s son. “Never,” said the prince. “But when she was going away, just before she got into her palanquin, she took a rose in her hand; and first she put this rose to her teeth; then she stuck it behind her ear; and then she laid it at her feet.” “Now I know all about her,” said his friend. “When she put the rose to her teeth, she meant to tell you her father’s name was Rájá Dánt [Rájá Tooth]; when she put it behind her ear she meant you to know her country’s name was Karnátak [on the ear]; and when she laid the rose at her feet, she meant that her name was Pánwpattí [Foot-leaf]. Get up; bathe and dress, eat and drink, and we will go and find her.”

The prince got up directly, and told his father and mother he was going for a few days to eat the air of another country. At first they forbad his going; but then they reflected that he had been very ill, and that perhaps the air of another country might make him well; so at last they consented. The prince and his friend had two horses saddled and bridled, and set off together.

At the end of a month they arrived in a country where they asked (as they had asked in every other country through which they had ridden), “What is the name of this country?” “Karnátak” [the Carnatic]. “What is your Rájá’s name?” “Rájá Dánt.” Then the two friends were glad. They stopped at an old woman’s house, and said to her, “Let us stay with you for a few days. We are men from another country and do not know where to go in this place.” The old woman said, “You may stay with me if you like. I live all alone, and there is plenty of room for you.”

After two or three days the kotwál’s son said to the old woman, “Has your Rájá a daughter?” “Yes,” she answered; “he has a daughter; her name is Pánwpattí Rání.” “Can you go to see her?” asked the kotwál’s son. “Yes,” she said, “I can go to see her. I was her nurse, and she drank my milk. It is the Rájá who gives me my house, and my food, and clothes—everything that I have.” “Then go and see her,” said the kotwál’s son, “and tell her that the prince whom she called to her at the fair has come.”

The old woman went up to the palace, and saw the princess. After they had talked together for some time, she said to the little Rání, “The prince you called to you at the fair is come.” “Good,” she said; “tell him to come to see me to-night at twelve o’clock. He is not to come in through the door, but through the window.” (This she said because she did not want her father to know that the prince had come, until she had made up her mind whether she would marry him.)

The old woman went home and told the kotwál’s son what the Princess Pánwpattí said. That night the prince went to see her, and every night for three or four nights he went to talk with her for an hour. Then she told her mother she wished to be married, and her mother told her father. Her father asked whom she wished to marry, and she said, “The Rájá’s son who lives in my nurse’s house.” Her father said she might marry him if she liked; so the wedding was held. The kotwál’s son went to the wedding, and then returned to the old woman’s house; but the prince lived in the Rájá’s palace.

Here he stayed for a month, and all that time he never saw his friend. At last he began to fret for him, and was very unhappy. “What makes you so sad?” said Pánwpattí Rání. “I am sad because I have not seen my friend for a whole month,” answered her husband. “I must go and see him.” “Yes, go and see him,” said his wife. The Rájá’s son went to the old woman’s house, and there he stayed a week, for he was so glad to see the kotwál’s son. Then he returned to his wife. Now she thought he would only have been away a day, and was very angry at his having stayed so long from her. “How could you leave me for a whole week?” she said to him. “I had not seen my friend for a month,” he answered. Pánwpattí Rání did not let her husband see how angry she was; but in her heart she thought, “I am sure he loves his friend best.”

The prince remained with her for a month. Then he said, “I must go and see my friend.” This made her very angry indeed. However, she said, “Good; go and see your friend, and I will make you some delicious sweetmeats to take him from me.” She set to work, and made the most tempting sweetmeats she could; only in each she put a strong poison. Then she wrapped them in a beautiful handkerchief, and her husband took them to the kotwál’s son. “My Rání has made you these herself,” he said to his friend, “and she sends you a great many salaams.” The Rájá’s son knew nothing of the poison.

The kotwál’s son put the sweetmeats on one side, and said, “Let us talk, and I will eat them by and by.” So they sat and talked for a long time. Then the kotwál’s son said, “Your Rání herself made these sweetmeats for me?” “Yes,” said the Rájá’s son. His friend was very wise, and he thought, “Pánwpattí Rání does not like me. Of that I am sure.” So he took some of the sweetmeats, and broke them into bits and threw them to the crows. The crows came flying down, and all the crows who ate the sweetmeats died instantly. Then the kotwál’s son threw a sweetmeat to a dog that was passing. The dog devoured it and fell dead. This put the Rájá’s son into great rage. “I will never see my Rání again!” he exclaimed. “What a wicked woman she is to try and poison my friend—my friend whom I love so dearly; but for whom I should never have married her!” He would not go back to his wife, and stayed in the old woman’s house. The kotwál’s son often told him he ought to return to his wife, but the prince would not do so. “No,” he said, “she is a wicked woman. You never did her any evil or hurt; yet she has tried to poison you. I will never see her again.”

When a month had passed, the kotwál’s son said to the prince, “You really must go back to Pánwpattí Rání; she is your wife, and you must go to her, and take her away to your own country.” Still the Rájá’s son declared he would never see her again. “If you would like to see something that will please you,” said his friend, “go back to your wife for one day; and to-night ‘when she is asleep’ you must take off all her jewels, and tie them up in a handkerchief, and bring them to me. But before you leave her you must wound her in the leg with this trident.” So saying, he gave him a small iron trident.

The prince went back to the palace. His wife was very angry with him, though she did not show her anger. At night ‘when she was fast asleep’ he took off all her jewels and tied them in a handkerchief, and he gave her a thrust in the leg with his trident. Then he went quickly back to his friend. The princess awoke and found herself badly hurt and alone; and she saw that her jewels were all gone. In the morning she told her father and mother that her jewels had been stolen; but she said nothing about the wound in her leg. The king called his servants, and told them a thief had come in the night and stolen his daughter’s jewels, and he sent them to look for the thief and seize him.

That morning the kotwál’s son got up and dressed himself like a yogí. He made the prince put on common clothes such as every one wears, so that he could not be recognized, and sent him to the bazar to sell his wife’s jewels. He told him, too, all he was to say. The pretended yogí went to the river and sat down by it, and the Rájá’s son went through the bazar and tried to sell the jewels. The Rájá’s servants seized him immediately. “You thief!” they said to him, “what made you steal our Rájá’s daughter’s jewels?” “I know nothing about the jewels,” said the prince. “I am no thief; I did not steal them. The holy man, who is my teacher, gave them to me to sell in the bazar for him. If you want to know anything more about them, you must ask him.” “Where is this holy man?” said the servants. “He is sitting by the river,” said the Rájá’s son. “Let us go to him. I will show you where he is.”

They all went down to the river, and there sat the yogí. “What is all this?” said the servants to him. “Are you a yogí, and yet a thief? Why did you steal the little Rání’s jewels?” “Are those the little Rání’s jewels?” said the yogí. “I did not steal them; I did not know to whom they belonged. Listen, and I will tell you. Last night at twelve o’clock I was sitting by this river when a woman came down to it—a woman I did not know. She took a dead body out of the river, and began to eat it. This made me so angry, that I took all her jewels from her, and she ran away. I ran after her and wounded her in the leg with my trident. I don’t know if she were your Rájá’s daughter, or who she was; but whoever she may be, she has the mark of the trident’s teeth in her leg.”

The servants took the jewels up to the palace, and told the Rájá all the yogí had said. The Rájá asked his wife whether the Princess Pánwpattí had any hurt in her leg, and told her all the yogí’s story. The Rání went to see her daughter, and found her lying on her bed and unable to get up from the pain she was in, and when she looked at her leg she saw the wound. She returned to the Rájá and said to him, “Our daughter has the mark of the trident’s teeth in her leg.”

The Rájá got very angry, and called his servants and said to them, “Bring a palanquin, and take my daughter at once to the jungle, and there leave her. She is a wicked woman, who goes to the river at night to eat dead people. I will not have her in my house any more. Cast her out in the jungle.” The servants did as they were bid, and left Pánwpattí Rání, crying and sobbing in the jungle, partly from the pain in her leg, and partly because she did not know where to go, and had no food or water.

Meanwhile her husband and the kotwál’s son heard of her being sent into the jungle, so they returned to the old woman’s house and put on their own clothes. Then they went to the jungle to find her. She was still crying, and her husband asked her why she cried. She told him, and he said, “Why did you try to poison my friend? You were very wicked to do so.” “Yes,” said the kotwál’s son; “Why did you try to kill me? I have never done you any wrong or hurt you. It was I who told your husband what you meant by putting the rose to your teeth, behind your ear, and at your feet. Without me he would never have found you, never have married you.” Then she knew at once who had brought all this trouble to her, and she was very sorry she had tried to kill her husband’s friend.

They all three now went home to her husband’s country; and his father and mother were very glad indeed that their son had married a Rájá’s daughter, and the Rájá gave the kotwál’s son a very grand present.

The young Rájá and his wife lived with his father and mother, and were always very happy together.

Told by Múniyá, February, 1879.