Told by Muniya, Calcutta, March 3rd, 1879.

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XXIX.

RAJA HARICHAND'S PUNISHMENT.

There was once a great Raja, Raja Harichand, who every morning before he bathed and breakfasted used to give away one hundred pounds weight of gold to the fakirs, his poor ryots, and other poor people. This he did in the name of God, "For," he said, "God loves me and gives me everything that I have; so daily I will give him this gold."

Now God heard what a good man Raja Harichand was, and how much the Raja loved him, and he thought he would go and see for himself if all that was said of the Raja were true. He therefore went as a fakir to Raja Harichand's palace and stood at his gate. The Raja had already given away his hundred pounds' weight of gold, and gone into his palace and bathed and breakfasted; so when his servants came to tell him that another fakir stood at his gate, the Raja said, "Bid him come to-morrow, for I have bathed, and have eaten my breakfast, and therefore cannot attend to him now." The servants returned to the fakir, and told him, "The Raja says you must come to-morrow, for he cannot see you now, as he has bathed and breakfasted." God went away, and the next day he again came, after all the fakirs and poor people had received their gold and the Raja had gone into his palace. So the Raja told his servants, "Bid the fakir come to-morrow. He has again come too late for me to see him now."

On the third day God was once more too late, for the Raja had gone into his palace. The Raja was vexed with him for being a third time too late, and said to his servants, "What sort of a fakir is this that he always comes too late? Go and ask him what he wants." So the servants went to the fakir and said, "Raja Harichand says, 'What do you want from him?'" "I want no rupees," answered God, "nor anything else; but I want him to give me his wife." The servants told this to the Raja, and it made him very angry. He went to his wife, the Rani Bahan, and said to her, "There is a fakir at the gate who asks me to give you to him! As if I should ever do such a thing! Fancy my giving him my wife!"

The Rani was very wise and clever, for she had a book, which she read continually, called the kop shastra; and this book told her everything. So she knew that the fakir at the gate was no fakir, but God himself. (In old days about two people in a thousand, though not more, could read this book; now-a-days hardly any one can read it, for it is far too difficult.) So the Rani said to the Raja, "Go to this fakir, and say to him, 'You shall have my wife.' You need not really give me to him; only give me to him in your thoughts." "I will do no such thing," said the Raja in a rage; and in spite of all her entreaties, he would not say to the fakir, "I will give you my wife." He ordered his servants to beat the fakir, and send him away; and so they did.

God returned to his place, and called to him two angels. "Take the form of men," he said to them, "and go to Raja Harichand. Say to him, 'God has sent us to you. He says, Which will you have—a twelve years' famine throughout your land during which no rain will fall? or a great rain for twelve hours?'"

The angels came to the Raja and said as God had bidden them. The Raja thought for a long while which he should choose. "If a great rain pours down for twelve hours," he said to himself, "my whole country will be washed away. But I have a great quantity of gold. I have enough to send to other countries and buy food for myself and my ryots during the twelve years' famine." So he said to the angels, "I will choose the famine." Then the angels came into his palace; and the moment they entered it, all the Raja's servants that were in the palace, and all his cows, horses, elephants, and other animals became stone. So did every single thing in the palace, excepting his gold and silver, and these turned to charcoal. The Raja and Rani did not become stone.

The angels said to them, "For three weeks you will not be able to eat anything; you will not be able to eat any food you may find or may have given you. But you will not die, you will live." Then the angels went away.

The Raja was very sad when he looked round his palace and saw everything in it, and all the people in it, stone, and saw all his gold and silver turned to charcoal. He said to his wife, "I cannot stay here. I must go to some other country. I was a great Raja; how can I ask my ryots to give me food? We will dress ourselves like fakirs, and go to another country."

They put on fakirs' clothes and went out of their palace. They wandered in the jungle till they saw a plum-tree covered with fruit. "Do gather some of those plums for me," said the Rani, who was very hungry. The Raja went to the tree and put out his hand to gather the plums; but when he did this, they at once all left the tree and went a little way up into the air. When he drew back his hand, the plums returned to the tree. The Raja tried three times to gather the plums, but never could do so.

He and the Rani then went on till they came to a plain in another country, where was a large tank in which men were fishing. The Rani said to her husband, "Go and ask those men to give us a little of their fish, for I am very hungry." The Raja went to the men and said, "I am a fakir, and have no pice. Will you give me some of your fish, for I have not eaten for four days and am hungry?" The men gave him some fish, and he and his wife carried it to a tank on another plain. The Rani cleaned and prepared the fish for cooking, and said to her husband, "I have nothing in which to cook this fish. Go up to the town (there was a town close by) and ask some one to give you an earthen pot with a lid, and some salt."

The Raja went up to the town, and some one in the bazar gave him the earthen pot, and a grain merchant put a little salt into it. Then he returned to the Rani, and they made a fire under a tree, put the fish into the pot, and set the pot on the fire. "I have not bathed for some days," said the Raja. "I will go and bathe while you cook the fish, and when I come back we will eat it." So he went to bathe, and the Rani sat watching the fish. Presently she thought, "If I leave the lid on the pot, the fish will dry up and burn." Then she took off the lid, and the fish instantly jumped out of the pot into the tank and swam away. This made the Rani sad; but she sat there quiet and silent. When the Raja had bathed, he returned to his wife, and said, "Now we will eat our fish." The Rani answered, "I had not eaten for four days, and was very hungry, so I ate all the fish." "Never mind," said the Raja, "it does not matter."

They wandered on, and the next day came to another jungle where they saw two pigeons. The Raja took some grass and sticks, and made a bow and arrow. He shot the pigeons with these, and the Rani plucked and cleaned them. Her husband and she made a little fire, put the pigeons in their pot, and set them on it. There was a tank near. "Now I will go and bathe," said the Rani; "I have not bathed for some days. When I come back, we will eat the pigeons." So she went to bathe, and the Raja sat down to watch the pigeons. Presently he thought, "If I leave the pot shut, the birds will dry up and burn." So he took off the lid, and instantly away flew the pigeons out of the pot. He guessed at once what the fish had done yesterday, and sat still and silent till the Rani came back. "I have eaten the pigeons in the same way that you ate the fish yesterday," he said to her. The Rani understood what had happened, and saw the Raja knew how the fish had escaped.

So they wandered on; and as they went the Rani remembered an oil merchant, called Ganga Teli, a friend of theirs, and a great man, just like a Raja. "Let us go to Ganga Teli, if we can walk as far as his house," she said. "He will be good to us." He lived a long way off. When they got to him, Ganga Teli knew them at once. "What has happened?" he said. "You were a great Raja; why are you and the Rani so poor and dressed like fakirs?" "It is God's will," they answered. Ganga Teli did not think it worth while to notice them much now they were poor; so, though he did not send them away, he gave them a wretched room to live in, a wretched bed to lie on, and such bad food to eat that, hungry as they were, they could not touch it. "When we were rich," they said to each other, "and came to stay with Ganga Teli, he received us like friends; he gave us beautiful rooms to live in, beautiful beds to lie on, and delicious food to eat. We cannot stay here."

So they went away very sorrowful, and wandered for a whole week, and all the time they had no food, till they came to another country whose Raja, Raja Bhoj, was one of their friends. Raja Bhoj received them very kindly. "What has brought you to this state? How is it you are so poor?" he said. "What has happened to you?" "It is God's will," they answered. Raja Bhoj gave them a beautiful room to live in, and told his servants to cook for them the very nicest dinner they could. This the servants did, and they brought the dinner into Raja Harichand's room, and set it before him and left him. Then he and the Rani put some of the food on their plates; but before they could eat anything, the food both in the dishes and on their plates became full of maggots. So they could not eat it. They felt greatly humbled. However, they said nothing, but worshipped God; and they buried all the food in a hole they dug in the floor of their room.

Now the daughter of Raja Bhoj had left her gold necklace hanging on the wall of the room in which were Raja Harichand and the Rani Bahan. At night when Raja Harichand was asleep, the Rani saw a crack come in the wall and the necklace go of itself into the crack; then the wall joined together as before. She at once woke her husband, and told him what she had seen. "We had better go away quickly," she said. "The necklace will not be found to-morrow, and Raja Bhoj will think we are thieves. It will be useless breaking the wall open to find it." The Raja got up at once, and they set out again. Raja Bhoj, when the necklace was not found, thought Raja Harichand and the Rani Bahan had stolen it.

They wandered on till they came to a country belonging to another friend, called Raja Nal, but they were ashamed to go to his palace. The three weeks were now nearly over, only two more days were left. So the Rani said, "In two days we shall be able to eat. Go into the jungle and cut grass, and sell it in the bazar. We shall thus get a few pice and be able to buy a little food." The Raja went out to the jungle, but he had to break and pull up the grass with his hands. He worked half the day, and then sold the grass in the bazar for a few pice. They were able to buy food, and worshipped God and cooked it; and as the three weeks were now over they were allowed to eat it.

They stayed in Raja Nal's country, and lived in a little house they hired in the bazar. Raja Harichand went out every day to the jungle for grass, which he pulled up or broke off with his hands, and then sold in the bazar for a few pice. The Rani saved a pice or two whenever she could, and at the end of two years they were rich enough to buy a hook such as grass-cutters use. The Raja could now cut more grass, and soon the Rani was able to buy some pretty-coloured silks in the bazar.

Her husband went daily to cut grass, and she sat at home making head-collars with the silks for horses. Four years after they had bought the hook, she had four of these head-collars ready, and she took them up to Raja Nal's palace to sell. It was the first time she had gone there, for she and her husband were ashamed to see Raja Nal. Their fakirs' dresses had become rags, and they had only been able to get wretched common clothes in their place, for they were miserably poor.

"What beautiful head-collars these are!" said Raja Nal's coachmen and grooms; and they took them to show to their Raja. As soon as he saw them he said, "Where did you get these head-collars? Who is it that wishes to sell them?" for he knew that only one woman could make such head-collars, and that woman was the Rani Bahan. "A very poor woman brought them here just now," they answered. "Bring her to me," said Raja Nal. So the servants brought him Rani Bahan, and when she saw the Raja she burst into tears. "What has brought you to this state? Why are you so poor?" said Raja Nal. "It is God's will," she answered. "Where is your husband?" he asked. "He is cutting grass in the jungle," she said. Raja Nal called his servants and said, "Go into the jungle, and there you will see a man cutting grass. Bring him to me." When Raja Harichand saw Raja Nal's servants coming to him, he was very much frightened; but the servants took him and brought him to the palace. As soon as Raja Nal saw his old friend, he seized his hands, and burst out crying. "Raja," he said, "what has brought you to this state?" "It is God's will," said Raja Harichand.

Raja Nal was very good to them. He gave them a palace to live in, and servants to wait on them; beautiful clothes to wear, and good food to eat. He went with them to the palace to see that everything was as it should be for them. "To-day," he said to the Rani, "I shall dine with your husband, and you must give me a dinner cooked just as you used to cook one for me when I went to see you in your own country." "Good, I will give it you," said the Rani; but she was quite frightened, for she thought, "The Raja is so kind, and everything is so comfortable for us, that I am sure something dreadful will happen." However, she prepared the dinner, and told the servants how to cook it and serve it; but first she worshipped God, and entreated him to have mercy on her and her husband. The dinner was very good, and nothing evil happened to any one. They lived in the palace Raja Nal gave them for four and a half years.

Meanwhile the farmers in Raja Harichand's country had all these years gone on ploughing and turning up the land, although not a drop of rain had fallen all that time, and the earth was hard and dry. Now just when the Raja and Rani had lived in Raja Nal's palace for four and a half years Mahadeo was walking through Raja Harichand's country. He saw the farmers digging up the ground, and said, "What is the good of your digging and turning up the ground? Not a drop of rain is going to fall." "No," said the farmers, "but if we did not go on ploughing and digging, we should forget how to do our work." They did not know they were talking to Mahadeo, for he looked like a man. "That is true," said Mahadeo, and he thought, "The farmers speak the truth; and if I go on neglecting to blow on my horn, I shall forget how to blow on it at all." So he took his deer's horn, which was just like those some yogis use, and blew on it. Now when Raja Harichand had chosen the twelve years' famine, God had said, "Rain shall not fall on Raja Harichand's country till Mahadeo blows his horn in it." Mahadeo had quite forgotten this decree; so he blew on his horn, although only ten and a half years' famine had gone by. The moment he blew, down came the rain, and the whole country at once became as it had been before the famine began; and moreover, the moment it rained, everything in Raja Harichand's palace became what it was before the angels entered it. All the men and women came to life again; so did all the animals; and the gold and silver were no longer charcoal, but once more gold and silver. God was not angry with Mahadeo for forgetting that he said the famine should last for twelve years, and that the rain should fall when Mahadeo blew on his horn in Raja Harichand's country. "If it pleased Mahadeo to blow on his horn," said God, "it does not matter that eighteen months of famine were still to last." As soon as they heard the rain had fallen, all the ryots who had gone to other countries on account of the famine returned to Raja Harichand's country.

Among the Raja's servants was the kotwal, and very anxious he was, when he came to life again, to find the Raja and Rani; only he did not know how to do so, and wondered where he had best seek for them.

Meanwhile the Rani Bahan had a dream that God sent her, in which an angel said to her, "It is good that you and your husband should return to your country." She told this dream to her husband; and Raja Nal gave them horses, elephants, and camels, that they might travel like Rajas to their home, and he went with them. They found everything in order in their own palace and all through their country, and after this lived very happily in it. But the Rani said to Raja Harichand, "If you had only done what I told you, and said you would give me to the fakir, all this misery would not have come on us."

Later they went to stay again with Raja Bhoj, and slept in the same room as they had had when they came to him poor and wretched. In the night they saw the wall open, and the necklace came out of the crack and hung itself up as before, and the wall closed again. The next day they showed the necklace to Raja Bhoj, saying, "It was on account of this necklace that we ran away from you the last time we were here," and they told him all that had happened to it.

As for Ganga Teli, they never went near him again.

Told by Muniya, March 4th, 1879.

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XXX.

THE KING'S SON AND THE WAZIR'S DAUGHTER.

In a country there was a great king who had a wazir. One day he thought he should like to play at cards with this wazir, and he told him to go and get some for him, and then play a game with him. So the wazir brought the cards, and he and the king sat down to play. Now neither the king nor the wazir had any children; and as they were playing, the king said, "Wazir, if I have a son and you have a daughter, or if I have a daughter and you have a son, let us marry our children to each other." To this the wazir agreed. A year after the king had a son; and when the boy was two years old, the wazir had a daughter. Some years passed, and the king's son was twelve years old, and the wazir's daughter ten. Then the king said to the wazir, "Do you remember how one day, when we were playing at cards, we agreed to marry our children to each other?" "I remember," said the wazir. "Let us marry them now," said the king. So they held the wedding feast; but the wazir's little daughter remained in her father's house because she was still so young.

As the king's son grew older he became very wicked, and took to gambling and drinking till his father and mother died of grief. After their death he went on in the same way, gambling and drinking, until he had no money left, and had to leave the palace, and live anywhere he could in the town, wandering from house to house in a fakir's dress, begging his bread, and sleeping wherever he found a spot on which to lie down.

Meanwhile the wazir's daughter was living alone, for her husband had never come to fetch her as he should have done when she was old enough. Her father and mother were dead too. She had given half of the money they left her to the poor, and she lived on the other half. She spent her days in praying to God, and in reading in a holy book; and though she was so young, she was very wise and good.

One day, as the prince was roaming about in his fakir's rags, not knowing where to find food or shelter, he remembered his wife, and thought he would go and see her. She ordered her servants to give him good food, a bath, and good clothes; "for," she said, "we were married when we were children, though he never fetched me to his palace." The servants did as she bade them. The prince bathed and dressed, and ate food, and he wished to stay with his wife. But she said, "No; before you stay with me you must see four sights. Go out in the jungle and walk for a whole week. Then you will come to a plain where you will see them." So the next day he set out for the plain, and reached it in one week.

There he saw a large tank. At one corner of the tank he saw a man and a woman who had good clothes, good food, good beds, and servants to wait on them, and seemed very happy. At the second corner he saw a wretchedly poor man and his wife, who did nothing but cry and sob because they had no food to eat, no water to drink, no bed to lie on, no one to take care of them. At the third corner he saw two little fishes that were always going up and down in the air. They would shoot down close to the water, but they could not go into it or stay in it; then they would make a salaam to God, and would shoot up again into the air, but before they got very high, they had to drop down again. At the fourth corner he saw a huge demon who was heating sand in an enormous iron pot, under which he kept up a big fire.

The prince returned to his wife, and told her all he had seen. "Do you know who the happy man and woman are?" she said. "No," he answered. "They are my father and mother," she said. "When they were alive, I was good to them, and since their death I gave half their money to the poor; and on the other half I have lived quietly, and tried to be good. So God is pleased with them, and makes them happy." "Is that true?" said her husband. "Quite true," she said. "And the miserable man and woman who did nothing but cry, do you know who they are?" "No," said the prince. "They are your father and mother. When they were alive, you gambled and drank; and they died of grief. Then you went on gambling and drinking till you had spent all their money. So now God is angry with them, and will not make them happy." "Is that true?" said the prince. "Quite true," she said. "And the fishes you saw were the two little children we should have had if you had taken me to your home as your wife. Now they cannot be born, for they can find no bodies in which to be born; so God has ordered them to rise and sink in the air in these fishes' forms." "Is that true?" asked the prince. "Quite true," she answered. "And by God's order the demon you saw is heating that sand in the big iron pot for you, because you are such a wicked man."

The moment she had told all this to her husband, she died. But he did not get any better. He gambled and drank all her money away, and lived a wretched life, wandering about like a fakir till his death.

Told by Muniya, March 8th, 1879.



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NOTES.

INTRODUCTORY.

In these stories the word translated God, is Khuda. Excepting in "How king Burtal became a Fakir" (p. 85), and in "Raja Harichand's Punishment" (p. 224), in which Mahadeo plays a part, the tellers of these tales would never specify by name the god they spoke of. He was always Khuda, "the great Khuda who lives up there in the sky." In this they differed from the narrator of the Old Deccan Days stories, who almost always gives her gods and goddesses their Hindu names—probably because, from being a Christian, she had no religious scruples to deter her from so doing.

When the heroes of these stories are called Rajas, the word Raja has been kept: when they are called Badshahs, we have called them kings. The Ayahs say, "A Badshah is a much greater man than a Raja." When badshah (the Persian padishah) in its corrupted form of basa is tacked on to a proper name, such as Anar (Anarbasa), Hiralal (Hiralalbasa), the basa has been preserved, because, Dunkni says, in these cases basa is no longer a title, but part of the proper name.

Old Muniya tells her stories with the solemn, authoritative air of a professor. She sits quite still on the floor, and uses no gestures. Dunkni gets thoroughly excited over her tales, marches up and down the room, acting her stories, as it were. For instance, in describing the thickness of Mahadeo's hair in King Burtal's story, she put her two thumbs to her ears, and spread out all her fingers from her head saying, "His hair stood out like this," and in "Loving Laili," after moving her hand as if she were pulling the magic knife from her pocket and unfolding it, she swung her arm out at full length with great energy, and then she said, "Laili made one 'touch'" (here she brought back the edge of her hand to her own throat), "and the head fell off." Dunkni sometimes used an English word, such as the "touch" in the present case.

All these stories were read back in Hindustani by my little girl to the tellers at the time of telling, and nearly all a second time by me this winter before printing. I never saw people more anxious to have their tales retold exactly than are Dunkni and Muniya. Not till each tale was pronounced by them to be thik (exact) was it sent to the press.

It is strange in these Indian tales to meet golden-haired, fair-complexioned heroes and heroines. Mr. Thornton tells me that in the Panjab when one native speaks of another with contempt, he says, "he is a black man," ek kala admi hai. Sir Neville Chamberlain tells me that if you wish to praise a native for his valour and brave conduct, you say to him, "Your countenance is red," or "your cheeks are red," and that nothing is worse than to tell him his "face is black." And this is what Mr. Boxwell says about the expression "kala admi" and our fairy tales:—

"The stories are of the Aryan conquerors from beyond the Indus; distinguished by their fair skin from the dark aborigines of India. In Vedic times Varṇa, 'colour,' is used for stock or blood, as the Latins used Nomen. It is in India 'Yas Dasam varṇam adharam guhakar.' 'Who sank in darkness the Barbarian colour.' R. V. II. 4.

"Indra, again, 'Hatve Dasyun pra Aryam varṇam avat.' 'Having slain the Barbarians, helped the Aryan colour.' R. V. III. 34.

"Again, in K. V. I. 104. They pray—

"'Te nas avaksa suvitaya varṇam.' 'May they bring our colour to success.'

"In later times 'varṇa' is the regular word for caste; and the Brahmins and the rest of the twice-born who still represent the Aryan varṇa are much fairer than the Cudras and Hill people.

"In the Ikhwan ussafa the black skin is one of the results of the Fall to Adam and Hawa.

"'Aftab ki garmi se rang mutaghaiyar aur siah ho gaya.' 'From the heat of the sun their colour became changed and black.'"

But I think the fact that the conquering races that invaded India from the north were fair and ruddier than the aborigines, and that their descendants, the high-caste natives, are to this day fairer than the aborigines, though it explains the phrases, "he is only a black man," and "your cheeks are red," does not account for the golden hair and fair skin of so many of our princes and princesses. I believe that they all owe their characteristics to the fact that such are the characteristics of the solar hero, although they cannot all lay claim to a solar origin for themselves. For this golden hair and white skin, at first the property of the shining sun-hero alone, would naturally in the course of time be given to other Indian folk-lore heroes on whose beauty and brightness it was necessary to lay a stress. Prince Majnun, for instance, certainly has nothing solar about him, yet his hair is described as red. Dunkni, in answer to a half incredulous, half inquiring exclamation of mine when I heard this, asserted, "Red! yes, it was red: red like gold."

The black-haired Maoris give their sea-nymphs yellow hair (Old New Zealand, p. 19); and Sir George Grey in his Polynesian Mythology, p. 295, writes thus of the Maori fairies: "Their appearance is that of human beings, nearly resembling an European's; their hair being very fair, and so is their skin. They are very different from the Maoris, and do not resemble them at all." But as the Maoris do not seem to have any myths of golden-haired solar heroes, these peculiarities of hair and complexion cannot be referred to the same cause as those of my little daughter's Indian princes and princesses.

I.—PHULMATI RANI.

1. Phulmati is a garden rose, not a wild rose. It must be a local name for the flower. I can find it in no dictionary. Dunkni says her heroine was named after a pink rose.

2. She has hair of pure gold. Compare in this book: Princess Jahuran, p. 43, the Monkey Prince, p. 50, Sonahri Rani, p. 54, Jahur Rani, p. 93, Prince Dima-ahmad and Princess Atasa, Notes, p. 253. Also, Hira Bai, the cobra's daughter in Old Deccan Days, p. 35. So many princely heroes and heroines in European fairy tales are noteworthy for their dazzling golden hair that I will only mention one of them, Princess Golden-Hair, one of whose hairs rings if it falls to the ground—see Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 100. And devils being fallen heroes or angels, the following references may be made to them. In Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, p. 171, in "Die beiden Fleischhauer in der Hoelle," the devil's grandmother gives the good brother a hair that had fallen from the devil's head while he slept. The man carries it home and the hair suddenly becomes as big as a "Heubaum" and is "of pure gold." Also in one of Grimm's stories the hero is sent to fetch three golden hairs from the devil's head—see Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. I. p. 175, "Der Teufel mit den drei goldenen Haaren."

3. Her beauty lights up a dark room. In this shining quality she resembles many Asiatic and European fairy-tale heroes and heroines. See in this book Hirali, whose face shone like a diamond, p. 69; and the Princess Labam, who shone like the moon, and her beauty made night day, p. 158. In Old Deccan Days, p. 156, the prince's dead body on the hedge of spears dazzles those who look at it till they can hardly see. Panch Phul Rani, p. 140, shines in the dark jungle like a star. So does the princess in Chundun Raja's dark tomb, p. 229. In a Dinajpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for February 1875, vol. IV. p. 54, the dream-nymph, Tillottama, whenever she appears, lights up the whole place with her beauty. "At every breath she drew when she slept, a flame like a flower issued from her nostril, and when she drew in her breath the flower of flame was again withdrawn." Her beauty lit up her house "as if by lightning." See Appendix A. In Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 96, is the Bohemian tale quoted above of Princess Golden-Hair. "Every morning at break of day she [the princess] combs her golden locks; its brightness is reflected in the sea, and up among the clouds," p. 102. When she let it down "it was bright as the rising sun," and almost blinded Irik with its radiance, p. 107. The golden children (Schott's Wallachische Maerchen, p. 125) shine in the darkened room "like the morning sun in May." Gubernatis in the 2nd vol. of his Zoological Mythology, mentions at p. 31 a golden boy who figures in one of Afanassieff's stories; when this child's body is uncovered on his restoration to his father, "all the room shines with light." And at p. 57 of the same volume he quotes another of Afanassieff's stories, in which the persecuted princess has three sons "who light up whatever is near them with their splendour." Of Gerd in Joetunheim, the beautiful giant maiden with the bright shining arms, Thorpe says (Northern Mythology, vol. I. p. 47), when she raised "her arms to open the door, both air and water gave such a reflection that the whole world was illumined." The boar Trwyth (who was once a king, but because of his sons was turned into a boar) after his fall preserves some of his old kingly splendour; for "his bristles were like silver wire, and whether he went through the wood or through the plain he was to be traced by the glittering of his bristles" (Mabinogion, vol. II. p. 310). In the same work (vol. III. p. 279), in "The Dream of Maxen Wledig," is a maiden, of whom it is told: "Not more easy than to gaze upon the sun when brightest was it to look upon her by reason of her beauty." And in "Goldhaar" (Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, p. 61) when the hero's cap fell off he stood there "in all splendour and his golden locks fell round his head, and he shone like the sun."

In a Santhali tale published by the Rev. F. T. Cole in the Indian Antiquary for January 1875, p. 10, called "Toria the Goatherd and the Daughter of the Sun," a beggar's eyes are as dazzled by the Sun's daughter's beauty "as if he had stared at the sun."

4. Phulmati Rani has on her head the sun, on her hands moons, and her face is covered with stars. Compare in these stories "The Indrasan Raja," p. 1, "The boy who had a moon on his forehead and a star on his chin," p. 119, and "Prince Dima-ahmad and Princess Atasa," Notes, p. 253. In Fraeulein Gonzenbach's Sicilian Fairy Tales, No. 5 (vol. I. p. 21), the king's son's children are born, the boy with a golden apple in his hand, the girl with a star on her forehead. In the Notes to this story (vol. II. p. 207) Herr Koehler mentions a Tyrolean fairy tale, "Zingerle, II. p. 112," where the king's son's daughter has a golden apple in her hand, and her brother a golden star on his forehead. In Milenowsky's Bohemian Fairy Tales, p. 1, is the story "Von den Sternprinzen" in which the king's son by the queen has a gold star on his forehead, and his son by the old woman has a silver star, p. 2. These princes' children also are born with gold and silver stars on their foreheads, p. 30. In a Hungarian tale, "Die verwandelten Kinder," the old man's youngest daughter promises, and keeps her promise, to give the king, if he marries her, twin sons, who will be most beautiful, will have golden hair, and each a golden ring on his arm; further, one is to have a planet, the other a sun on his forehead—Stier's Ungarische Volksmaerchen, p. 57. Also in the same author's Ungarische Sagen und Maerchen in "Die beiden juengsten Koenigskinder," the hero wins a bride (p. 77) who has a sun on her forehead, a moon on her right, and three stars on her left, breast. In "Eisenlaci" in the same collection the snake-king's daughter has a star on her forehead (p. 109). Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 412) says, "In the seventh story of the third book of Afanassieff, the queen bears two sons; one has a moon on his forehead and the other a star on the nape of his neck. Her wicked sister buries them; a golden and a silver sprout spring up which a sheep eats and then has two lambs, one with a moon on its head, the other with a star on its neck. The wicked sister who has married the king orders them to be torn in pieces, and their intestines to be thrown into the road. The good, lawful queen eats them and again gives birth to her sons." Gubernatis in the 2nd volume of the same work, p. 31, quotes another of Afanassieff's stories, the thirteenth of the third book, in which a merchant's wife has a son "whose body is all of gold, effigies of stars, moon, and sun covered it." This is the gold boy mentioned in the preceding paragraph as lighting up the room when his body was uncovered. In "Das Schwarze Lamm," the empress bears a son with a golden star on his forehead (Karadschitsch, Volksmaerchen der Serben, p. 177).

5. Phulmati Rani weighs but one flower: compare Panch Phul Rani in Old Deccan Days, p. 133.

6. Indrasan (= Indra + Asana, Indra's throne or home), says Dunkni, is the name of the underground fairy country. Its inhabitants, the fairies (pari) are called the Indrasan people; they delight in all lovely things; everything about them is beautiful; they play exquisitely on all kinds of musical instruments; they dance and sing a great deal; they have wings and can fly. They taught the little Monkey Prince (p. 42), and King Burtal's eldest son was taken to them as a pupil by the fakir Goraknath, p. 93. In Indrasan grows a tree of which no man can ever see the flowers or fruit, as the fairies gather them in the night and take them away. The Irish "good people" who live in clefts of rocks, caves, and mounds, and the Irish fairies who live in the beautiful land of youth under the sea, have many points in common with the Indian fairies. They, too, dance beautifully, are wonderful musicians, and have everything about them lovely and splendid. The "good people" also sometimes impart their knowledge to mortals. See pp. x, xii, and xviii of the Introduction to the Irische Elfenmaerchen translated into German by the brothers Grimm. Some of the Cornish fairies, the Small People, like the Indrasan people, live underground (Hunt's Romances and Drolls of the West of England, pp. 116, 118, 125), aid those to whom they take a fancy and are very playful among themselves (ib. p. 81); they have the most ravishing music (ib. pp. 86, 98); their singing is clear and delicate as silver bells (ib. p. 100); everything about them is joyous and beautiful (ib. pp. 86, 99, 100); they are a tiny race (ib. p. 81), but can at pleasure take the size of human beings (ib. pp. 115, 122, 123); and their queen has hair "like gold threads" (ib. p. 102). The fair-haired New Zealand fairies are, too, a kindly happy race. See Grey's Polynesian Mythology, pp. 287 to 295. Nothing is said about their dancing, but they are described as "merry, cheerful, and always singing like a cricket" (ib. p. 295), and from one of their fishing-nets left on the sea shore, when its fairy owners were surprised by the rising of the sun, the Maoris learnt the stitch for netting a net. Like the Indian fairies they appear to be as big as human beings.

7. Phulmati Rani is drowned in a tank and becomes a flower; she is killed and brought to life several times: compare in this collection the story of the "Pomegranate Children" and note to that story. In one of Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, "The Fiend," p. 15, the heroine is killed through witchcraft: from her grave springs a flower which is herself transformed: she afterwards regains her human shape.

8. With Phulmati's last transformation compare the last that the Bel-Princess goes through (p. 148 of this collection), and that of a woman, who figures in a Dinajpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary of April 5th, 1872, vol. I. p. 115. She, though living in the Rakshas country, is not a Rakshas, but does not appear to be an ordinary mortal, and when cut to bits by a certain magic knife becomes a tree. "Her feet became a silver stem, her two hands golden branches, her head ornaments were diamond leaves, all her bracelets and bangles were pearly fruits, and her head was a peacock dancing and playing in the branches." As soon as the magic knife is thrown to the ground she regains her human form.

Eisenlaci in Stier's Ungarische Sagen und Maerchen (pp. 107-109) comes in the form of a horse to the twelve-headed dragon's house. He is killed; the first two drops of his blood are thrown into the garden and from them springs a tree with golden apples: the tree is cut down, but the first two chips (which are flung into the pond) become a gold fish: the gold fish turns into Eisenlaci himself in human form.

9. Winning a wife by seizing her dress while she bathes is an incident common to fairy tales of many countries.

II.—THE POMEGRANATE KING.

1. Such is the story as told by Dunkni in 1876; at that time, when it was read over to her, she said it was correct. On my asking her in 1878, when the story was going through the press, to explain some points in it, such as why the children said they had been brought to life three times, the boy having only died twice, and the girl once, she told me the following variation: After the attempt to get rid of the boy by making him into a curry had failed, the Rani Sunkasi sent for a sepoy and bade him carry the two children to the jungle and there kill them; and as a proof of their death he was to bring her their livers. Once in the jungle with the children, the sepoy had not the heart to kill them; so he left them in it, and brought the livers of two goats to Sunkasi Rani. She buried the livers in the garden and was content; but some months later as she was walking (literally "eating the air") in the jungle she saw her step-children playing about; she returned to the palace, sent for the sepoy, and asked him why he had not killed the children. "I did kill them," said the sepoy, "and brought you their livers." "Those livers were not the children's livers," answered the Rani; "I have just seen the children alive and playing in the jungle." "They must have been other people's children that you saw," said the sepoy, "yours I killed." "Do not tell me lies," said the Rani. "Now you must at once go to the jungle, kill the children, and bring me their eyes." The sepoy went to find the children, but when he found them he could not kill them, so he took them to some people who lived in a hut, and said to these people, "Take great care of the two children. Be very kind to them." He then killed two goats and took their eyes to the Rani, who was now satisfied for some time. But one day another of the Pomegranate Raja's sepoys passed near the hut, and saw the children playing about. So he went to Sunkasi Rani and told her the children were alive and well. At this the Rani was very angry, and she thought, "It is of no use my sending the first sepoy again to kill them. I will send this man." She said, therefore, to the second sepoy, "If you will kill these children for me, you shall have a great reward." The sepoy agreed, went to the little hut, and seized the children. The poor people who took care of the children begged and prayed him to have pity on them; but the sepoy said, "No." He had the Rani's orders to kill them, and they must and should be killed. And so he killed them and brought their livers to the Rani as she had bidden him. Sunkasi Rani was very happy when she saw the livers, and she buried them close to a large tank that was in her garden.

Some three months later her servants came to her and told her a beautiful large bel-fruit was floating on the water of the tank. Sunkasi Rani went at once with them to the tank, and when she saw the fruit she was seized with a great longing to have it. So she sent all her servants, one after the other, into the tank to fetch it; but all to no purpose, for as soon as any one of them got close to the fruit it floated away from him. Then the Rani herself went into the tank. She, however, was not a whit more able to get it: when she thought she had only to put out her hand to take it, the fruit rose up into the air, and fell into the water again as soon as she had come up out of the tank. She went to the Maharaja and told him of this lovely bel-fruit, and then went to her room while he came down to the tank. He said, "I should like to catch the fruit: I wonder if I can do so. What a lovely fruit!" As soon as he put his hand into the water the fruit came floating towards him, and floated into it. "I think this fruit is quite ripe," said the Maharaja. "Quite ripe," said the servants, and they struck it with a stone to break it open. "Oh, you hurt us! you hurt us!" cried little voices from inside the bel-fruit. "Gently, gently; don't hurt us." The Maharaja and all the servants were greatly surprised, and the Maharaja went to Sunkasi Rani, and told her all about the little voices. She at once guessed her step-children were in the fruit, so she said to the Maharaja, "You had better take the fruit to the jungle and there break it open with a big stone, so that anything inside it may be crushed to bits." "I will not do that," said the Maharaja. Then he went back to his servants and made them cut the fruit's rind very carefully cross-ways and the fruit broke into halves: in one half sat his little son, in the other his little daughter. As soon as the halves were laid on the ground the children stepped out, and at once grew to their natural size. Their father was very angry when he saw them. "Why, I thought you were at school," said he. "The Maharani told me you were at school. Why are you not there? What funny (Dunkni's own word) children you are to get into this bel-fruit! What made you like to live in a fruit?" But to all his questionings and scoldings the children said not one word. At last he sent them up to the palace, and there they stayed with him for some three months. But the Maharani said to him, "These are not your children. Yours are at school." "They are my children," he answered.

All this time the Maharani hated them more and more, and at last she went to them and said, "Now I really will kill you." "Just as you please," answered the children; "we don't mind being killed. You may kill us three times, four times, as often as you like: it does not matter in the least; for God will always bring us to life again."

At this Sunkasi Rani flew into a rage and she called her servants and said, "Kill these children, cut them into mince-meat and throw them to the crows and kites. When the crows and kites have eaten them, they cannot come to life any more." So the servants killed the children, and chopped them up very fine and fed the crows and kites with their flesh; and now the Maharani was very happy.

Some months later, as she was walking in her garden, she saw two beautiful flower-buds on a large bel-tree that grew in it. She showed them to the gardener, and asked if he had seen them before. "Never," said the man. "On this tree there have never been either flowers or fruit till now." "Gather the flowers for me," said the Rani, "I do so wish to have them." The gardener said to her, "Wait till the buds are fully blown and then I will gather them for you." At the end of three or four days the Rani Sunkasi asked if the buds had grown into large flowers, and the gardener said, "Yes, to-day I will gather them for you." He got a long, long bamboo cane, and tied a piece of wood cross-ways on one of its ends so as to make a sort of hook wherewith to catch hold of and break off the flowers. He tried and tried to get them, but all in vain. Then he made all the servants try. It was of no use, no one could make the hook touch the flowers. They always bent themselves just out of its reach. Then Sunkasi Rani tried, but with no better success. She told the Maharaja, who said, "I will try to-morrow to gather these wonderful flowers."

That night as the Rani lay in her bed she suddenly thought, "Those children are in the flowers," and she determined to be with her husband when he gathered them, to get them into her own hands some way or other.

The next morning Anarbasa Maharaja and his wife went to the bel-tree, and as soon as he held out his hand towards the flowers, they dropped into it. "What lovely flowers! What beautiful flowers! Do give them to me," said Sunkasi Rani. "No," said the Maharaja, "I will keep them myself." Then he carried them to his room and laid them on the table while he shut the door and the venetians. Then he came and sat down before them: he took them in his hand, and looked at them and laid them again on the table; then he took them and smelt them, and they smelt, oh! so sweet. This he did many times. At last he held them to his ears, for the adventure of the bel-fruit had made him wise (hushyar), and he heard little tiny voices, saying, "Papa" (Dunkni's own word), "we want to stay with you; we should like to be with you." The Maharaja looked very carefully at the flowers, and at last, in one of them he saw a little splinter of wood like a thorn sticking: he pulled this out, and his own little son stood before him. Then he looked at the other flower, and in that, too, was a little splinter of wood sticking. When he pulled it out his little girl stood there.

The Maharaja was vexed with his children, and asked them why they were so naughty, and why they liked to live in fruits and flowers instead of staying in the palace or going to school. The children answered, "We go to school sometimes, and then we come back and live in our flowers, and then we return to school, and then we come back to our flower-homes again." "This is a lie you are telling me," said their father. "You know quite well you have not been at school at all." The Maharani came in to hear what all this talking meant, and when she saw the children she said to Anarbasa Maharaja, "These are not your children, yours are at school." "They are my children," he answered, "and they have never been at school at all, and they are very naughty." He then sent them away to play, and the Rani returned to her room. But he sat alone in his room, for he was angry and cross. As he sat there one of his chaprasis came to him and said, "Maharaj, you do not know how ill the Maharani treats your children, or you would not be angry with them. She has killed them several times, and sent them away into the jungle; and after they came out of the bel-fruit she killed them and chopped them into small pieces, and fed the kites and crows with their flesh." When the Maharaja heard all this, he said to the chaprasi, "You must have a beautiful little house built for me; you must take care that it is chiefly made of wood; the flooring must be very thin and of wood; and the hollow place under the flooring must be filled with dry wood. Then you must put plenty of flowers inside the house, and plenty outside so as to make it very pretty."

As soon as the house was ready the Maharaja went to his wife and asked her if she would go out with him to eat the air. "I should like to show you a new house I have had built for you," he said. So she went with him and thought her new house lovely. While she was inside looking at the pretty flowers in the rooms, the Maharaja slipped out, and bolted the door so that she could not escape, and he told his servants to set fire to the wood under the flooring. When the flames began to rise the Rani got very frightened. She rushed to the window and called to the Maharaja and his servants, who were standing there looking on, to save her. No one said anything to her. "Save me," she cried, "or I shall be burnt to death." "If you are burnt, what does it matter?" said the Maharaja. "You ill-treated my children; you killed them; so, now burn."

As soon as she was burnt to death the Maharaja had all her bones collected and put into four dishes, and he gave them to one of his servants to take to Sunkasi Rani's mother. When her mother uncovered dish after dish and found nothing but bones, she asked the servant, "Of what use are bones?" "These are your daughter's bones," said he: "therefore Anarbasa Maharaja sent them to you. Sunkasi Rani ill-treated and killed his children, and so he burnt her."

The rest of the story she pronounced exact (thik).

2. The bel-tree is the AEgle Marmelos of botanists.

3. With the different deaths and transformations of the children compare in this book: Phulmati Rani, pp. 3 and 4: the Kite's Children, p. 22: the Bel-Princess, pp. 144, 145, 148: and in Old Deccan Days Surya Bai, pp. 85, 86. In "Die goldenen Kinder" (Schott's Wallachische Maerchen) the golden children are killed and buried (p. 122). From their hearts spring two apple-trees having golden leaves and apples. The trees are destroyed; but a sheep has eaten an apple and then has two golden lambs. The step-mother kills them at once and sends the maid to wash the entrails in the stream, intending to cook them for her husband to eat (compare the curry in the "Pomegranate King," p. 8; the broth (Suhr) in Grimm's "von dem Machandelboom," Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. I. p. 271; and the stew in the Devonshire story, "The Rose-Tree," told in Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England, p. 314). A piece of the entrail escapes, and as it floats away it swells and swells. On reaching the opposite bank it bursts, and out of it step the golden children. In a Hungarian story the children, one with a planet and one with a sun on his forehead, and each with a ring on his arm, are killed by a wicked woman who wants her daughter to take their mother's place as queen. They turn first into two golden pear-trees. These are destroyed by fire, but one glowing coal from the fire is eaten by an old she-goat. The old goat then has two little golden-fleeced kids. They are killed, an old crow swallows a piece of the entrails as they are being washed in the brook; she flies to the seventy-seventh island in the ocean, builds a nest and lays two golden eggs. Out of the eggs come the golden-haired children with their planet, sun and golden rings. The old crow sends them for seven years to school to a hermit (here is the holy man again, see p. 283 of these notes), and then flies home with them to their father. The pillar of salt, into which their mother was changed, answers all the king's questions. It is not said that she regained her human form ("Die verwandelten Kinder," Stier's Ungarische Volksmaerchen, p. 58). In a Siebenburg story, "Die beiden goldenen Kinder," the children are killed by an envious woman who becomes queen in their mother's place. From their remains spring two golden pine-trees which are burnt; a sheep eats two of the sparks and has two golden lambs that are killed; from two pieces of the entrails step forth the golden-haired children (Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, pp. 2, 3). In this tale the children are restored to their father, the king, by the intervention of God himself (p. 4), who in these Siebenbuergische Maerchen plays a part just as often as "Khuda" does in the Indian tales, taking for the purpose the form of a "good old man," and often wearing a grey mantle that reminds one of Odin. In the Netherlandish story of "The knight with the swan" (Thorpe's Northern Mythology, vol. III. p. 302), King Oriant's mother persuades the king his wife gave him seven puppies instead of seven children (each born with a silver chain round its neck in "proof of their mother's nobility"). She sends the children to the forest to be destroyed. They are left there alive, and are fostered by an old man. When the queen-mother learns this, she sends servants to kill them. These are content with depriving six of the children of their silver chains, on which the children instantly become swans. (The seventh child is absent and so is saved.) A goldsmith makes two beakers out of one of the chains, and keeps the others intact. When the chains are hung again round the five swans' necks, and the beaker shown to the sixth, they regain their human forms. See also paragraph 8 of the notes to Phulmati Rani.

4. With the children in the fruit and flowers compare in these stories, Phulmati Rani, p. 3: Loving Laili, p. 81: the Bel-Princess, p. 146, and paragraph 5 of the notes to that story, p. 283: and in Old Deccan Days, "Surya Bai," p. 86: and "Anar Rani and her two maids," p. 95. With these may be compared the Polish Madey (Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 220). Madey is a robber who commits fearful crimes; he repents, and sticks his "murderous club" upright in the ground, swearing to kneel before it till the boy who has caused his repentance returns as a bishop. Years go by: the boy, now a bishop, passes through Madey's forest. The club has become an apple-tree full of apples and he discovers Madey through their sweet odour. At Madey's request the bishop confesses him; and as Madey confesses his crimes, the apples on the tree, one after another, become white doves and fly to heaven. They were the souls of those he had murdered.

In an unpublished story told by Dunkni, the incidents of the children being in the fruit, and the fruit not letting itself be gathered by any but the rightful owner of its contents (as is the case also with the Bel-Princess), again occur. In this story there is a prince called Aisab, who, as he wished very much to have children, married. At the same time he took an oath that if his child, when he had one, cried, he would kill it, and then if his wife cried he would kill her too. His first wife gave him a child who died; she cried and was killed by her husband. The same thing happened to the second wife. He then married a third wife, called Gulianar. She had a little son, Dima-ahmad, and two or three years later another son, called Karamat. The first boy died, but Gulianar did not cry—she only grieved for him in her heart. Karamat was unhappy from seeing other children playing with their brothers and sisters, and asked his mother "why he had no brother or sister to play with?" She said, "Once you had a little brother and he died." Then Karamat began to cry, and his father killed him immediately with his sword because of his oath, though he loved Karamat dearly. The "mother was still sadder than before, but she never wept." Then God took pity on her and sent down into Prince Aisab's garden a big bel-tree, and on this bel-tree was a fruit. Every one tried to gather this fruit, even Prince Aisab tried, but each time their hands approached it the fruit rose into the air and returned again when the hands were withdrawn. Then Gulianar stretched out her hand "and the fruit fell into it." She took it into the house and tried to break it open with a stone, and a voice called out, "Mother, mother, not so hard; you hurt us." She was very much frightened, thinking a Rakshas or a demon was in the fruit. Prince Aisab was equally alarmed, but his wazir, Mamatsa, broke the fruit open gently in obedience to the little voice that called out, "Don't knock so hard, Mamatsa; you hurt us;" and out of it stepped the two little children Dima-ahmad and Karamat. Dima-ahmad was very beautiful. On his head was the sun, on his face the moon, and on his hands stars, and he had long golden hair. He married a princess, Atasa, who also had the sun on her head, the moon on her face, stars on her hands, and "her hair was of pure gold and reached down to the ground." The idea that none but the rightful owner can catch the child is found too in Grey's Polynesian Mythology at pp. 116, 117, in the story of Whakatau, who was fashioned in the sea from his mother Apakura's apron by the god Rongota-kawiu. This child lived at the bottom of the sea; but one day he came on shore after his kite, and all who saw him tried in vain to catch him. Then said Whakatau, "You had better go and bring Apakura here; she is the only person who can catch me and hold me fast." His mother then comes and catches him.

5. Sunkasi's bones are sent to her mother. In the Sicilianische Maerchen collected by Laura Gonzenbach, it is a common practice for husbands to punish their second wives' treachery with death, and then to send their remains to their mothers, who feast on them, thinking they are eating tunny-fish, and die of grief on learning what they have really swallowed.

6. With Gulianar's change into a bird compare Laura Gonzenbach's 13th Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 82, where the real bride is transformed into a dove by a black-headed pin being driven into her head, and regains her human form when the pin is pulled out. Schott has a similar incident in his Wallachische Maerchen, p. 251. So has Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. II. p. 242) in a story from near Leghorn, where the woman is changed into a swallow (in all these stories it is the husband who pulls out the pin); and he says similar stories with a transformation into a dove are told in Piedmont, in other parts of Tuscany, in Calabria, and are to be found in the Tutiname. Ralston's Princess Mariya (Russian Folk Tales, p. 183), and Thorpe's second story of "The Princess that came out of the water" (Yule Tide Stories, p. 41), may also be compared.

7. The golden bird in the Siebenburg story drops pearls from its beak whenever it sings ("Der goldne Vogel," Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, pp. 31, 35). The princess, its mistress, wears (p. 39) a golden mantle "adorned with carbuncles and pearls from the golden bird."

III.—THE CAT AND THE DOG.

1. The Tiger promises not to eat the man who helps him and then tries to break his promise. Compare "The Brahman, the Tiger, and the six Judges," Old Deccan Days, p. 159; and "Ananzi and the Lion" in Dasent's Ananzi Stories, p. 490.

2. In a Slavonic story mentioned by Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. II. p. 111), a bear is about to kill a peasant in revenge. A fox appears, "shakes its tail and says to the peasant, 'Man, thou hast ingenuity in thy head and a stick in thy hand.' The peasant immediately understands the stratagem," and persuades the bear to get into a sack he has with him that he may carry the bear three times round the field instead of doing penance, after which the bear is to do what he likes with him. The bear gets into the sack, the man "binds it strongly" together, and then beats the bear to death with his stick. Gubernatis at p. 132 of the same volume tells a similar story from Russia in which a wolf plays the part of the bear and of our tiger.

IV.—THE CAT THAT COULD NOT BE KILLED.

1. In an unpublished story told us by Gangiya, a hill-man from near Simla, a cat saves herself from being eaten by a jackal very much in the same way that this cat saved herself from the leopard. The jackal (in Gangiya's story) ate anything it came across, whether it were dead or alive. One day he met a tiger and said to him, "I will eat you. I will not let you go." "Very good," said the tiger, "eat me." So the jackal ate him up. He went a little further and met a leopard; he said to the leopard, "I will eat you." "Very good," said the leopard. So he ate the leopard. He went a little further and met a tiny mouse. "Mouse," he said, "I have eaten a tiger and a leopard, and now I will eat you." "Very good," said the mouse. He ate the mouse. He went a little further and met a cat. "I will eat you," said the jackal. The cat answered, "What will it profit you to eat me, who am so small? A little further on you will see a dead buffalo: eat that." So the jackal left the cat and went to eat the buffalo. He walked on and on, but could find no buffalo; and the cat, meanwhile ran away. The jackal was very angry, and set off to seek the cat, but could not find her. He was furious.

VI.—THE RAT AND THE FROG.

Compare the Bohemian "Long-desired child," Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 226. This child is carved out of a tree-root by a woodman, who brings him home to his wife. They delight in having a child at last. The child eats all the food in the house; his father and mother; a girl with a wheelbarrow full of clover; a peasant, his hay-laden cart, and his cart-horses; a man and his pigs; a shepherd, his flock and dog; lastly, cabbages belonging to an old woman who cuts him in two with her mattock just as he tries to eat her. Out of him jump unhurt every thing and every one he has swallowed. In a story from the south of Siberia (Gubernatis' Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 140) the hero vanquishes a demon, who tells him that in his stomach he will find a silver casket. He cuts the monster open and out of him come "innumerable animals, men, treasures, and other objects. Some of the men say, 'What noble youth has delivered us from the black night?'" In two of the caskets the hero finds the eyes of an old woman who has befriended him, and money, "and from the last casket came forth more men, animals, and valuables of every kind." In a Russian story quoted by Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. pp. 406, 407) the wolf eats the kids all but one. The mother goat persuades him to jump over a fire. The fire splits his belly open, out tumble all the little kids, lively as ever. There is a very similar story with fox, goat, and kid for actors in Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. III. p. 93; and Grimm has one also, "Der Wolf und die sieben jungen Geislein," in his Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. I. p. 29. In the notes to this story, vol. III. p. 15, Grimm says, "In Pomerania this is told of a child who when his mother had gone out was swallowed by the child-spectre, resembling the varlet Ruprecht. But the stones which he swallows with the child make the spectre so heavy that he falls to the earth, and the child unhurt springs out of him." See, too, the demons at p. 99 of these stories, who swallow the Princess Champakali's suitors.

* * * * *

Tylor in his Primitive Culture, vol. I. p. 341, classes Little Red Riding Hood among these Day and Night myths. It is, he says, "mutilated in the English Nursery version, but known more perfectly by old wives in Germany, who can tell that the lovely little maid in her shining red satin cloak was swallowed with her grandmother by the wolf, but they both came out safe and sound when the hunter cut open the sleeping beast." He also quotes among these myths (ib. p. 338) a story of the Ojibwas in which the hero is swallowed by a great fish and cut out again by his sister; and another belonging to the Basutos in which all mankind save the hero and his mother were devoured by a monster. The hero "attacked the creature and was swallowed whole, but cutting his way out he set free all the inhabitants of the world." At the same page is the story of the Zulu Princess Untombinde who was carried off by a dreadful beast. "The king gathered his army and attacked it, but it swallowed up men, and dogs, and cattle, all but one warrior; he slew the monster, and there came out cattle, and horses, and men, and last of all the princess herself." Mr. Tylor quotes, too (ib. p. 336), in connexion with this class of myths, the story of the death of the New Zealand sun-hero, Maui, which he tells more fully than does Sir George Grey in his Polynesian Mythology; and he goes on at pp. 338, 339, 340, to connect these myths with those of Perseus and Andromeda; Heracles and Hesione; the story of Jonah and his fish; the Greenland angakok swallowed by bear and walrus and thrown up again; and the legend of Hades.

Besides the angakok mentioned by Mr. Tylor, Dr. Rink, in his Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, has two other stories of escapes from the stomach of a dead animal when it is cut open. In the first, at p. 260, the boy is devoured by a gull; his sister kills the bird, takes her brother's bones from its pouch and carries them home: on the way the boy comes to life again. The other tale, p. 438, tells how Nakasungnak jumped out of the hole his friends had made in the dead "ice-covered" bear's side; but his hair as well as the skin of his face had come off, and he shivered from cold and ague. And in Ralston's Songs of the Russian People, p. 177, is a story of a snake who steals "the luminaries of the night. A hero cuts off his head, and out of the slain monster issue the Bright Moon and the Morning Star."

VII.—FOOLISH SACHULI.

1. Foolish Sachuli lives in many lands. In his Russian dress he figures in "The Fool and the Birch-tree," Ralston's Russian Folk Tales, p. 52. In the Sicilian "Giufa" we find him again (Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 249). In England he appears in an out-of-the-way village in the south (see Pall Mall Budget, July 12, 1878, p. 11, Wild Life in a Southern Country, No. XIV.) with, to use his mother's words, "no more sense than God had given him." She wishing to have his testimony discredited when he bears witness against her, as she knows he will, goes upstairs and rains raisins on him from the window. So when asked to specify the time he speaks of, he says, "When it rained raisins," and is of course disbelieved.

Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "This story of a stupid boy has a parallel in a Gaelic tale in my collection, where the boy dated an event which was true by a fall of pancakes or something of the kind which was not true, and was not believed though he told the truth." [At p. 385, vol. II. of the Tales of the West Highlands a "half booby" is inveigled by his mother into dating his theft of some planks by a "shower of milk-porridge."]

2. The magic gifts given by the fairies are a common incident in fairy tales: so is the adventure with the jar of ghee.

VIII.—BARBER HIM AND THE TIGERS.

1. Forbes in his Hindustani Dictionary says Kans or Kansa was the name of a wicked tyrant whom Krishṇa was born to destroy, and that the word now means a wicked tyrant. But Raja Kans is an historical character. All that is known of him is told by the late Professor Blochmann in the Bengal Asiatic Society's Journal for 1873, Pt. I. p. 264.

2. In the note (p. 380) to the XIXth Tale in the Sagas from the Far East, is a story in which Barber Him's part is played by a he-goat, and that of his tigers by a lion. See, too, "How the three clever men outwitted the demons" in Old Deccan Days, pp. 273-278. In a Santali tale, "Kanran and Guja," sent by the Rev. F. T. Cole to the Indian Antiquary, vol. IV. September 1875, p. 257, two brothers, Kanran and Guja, climb into a tal tree. Here they are discovered by a tiger whom they have deprived of his tail, and who has brought a number of his friends to help him revenge himself on the brothers. The tailless tiger proposes they shall all stand one the top of the other, to reach the men in the tree. His friends agree provided he takes his stand at the bottom, and they climb as proposed till they almost reach the brothers. Then Kanran calls out to Guja, "Give me your axe. I will kill the tailless tiger." The tigers in terror all tumble to the ground, crushing their tailless friend in their fall, and flee to their homes. In "The Leopard and the Ram" (Bleek's Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 24) the ram and the leopard play the parts of the barber and his tigers. See, too, "The Lion and the Bushman," p. 59 of the same collection.

Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "Compare the Irish story of two hunchbacks in Keightley. A version is in Mitford's Japanese book; and far better versions are common in Japan."

IX.—THE BULBUL AND THE COTTON-TREE.

1. Cotton-tree, in Hindustani Semal.

2. Koel, Indian cuckoo.

X.—THE MONKEY PRINCE.

1. Bandarsa means like a monkey; Dunkni in telling this husk-story just as often called the monkey-skin a husk (chhilka) as she called it a skin (chamra).

2. Princess Jahuran throws mattresses to her drowning husband. In a Manipuri tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, vol. IV. September 1875, p. 260, Basanta's wife throws him a pillow that he may save himself when the envious merchant, on board whose boat they are, pitches the prince into the river that he may secure the princess for himself.

XI.—BRAVE HIRALALBASA.

1. With this story all through compare "The Demon is at last conquered by the King's Son," p. 173 of this collection.

2. Rakshas means protector, and is, probably, an euphemistic term. The chapter on Mystic Animals in Swedish traditions (Thorpe's Northern Mythology, vol. II. p. 83) gives a list of certain creatures that are not to be mentioned by their own but by euphemistic names for fear of incurring their wrath. This belief, Thorpe in the same chapter, p. 84, says, extends to certain inanimate things: water used for brewing, for instance, must not be called vatn (water) or the beer will not be so good; and fire occasionally is to be spoken of as hetta (heat). The girl in an Esthonian tale quoted by Gubernatis at p. 151 of the 1st vol. of his Zoological Mythology addresses a crow whose help she needs as "Bird of light." Fiske says (Myths and Mythmakers, p. 223), "A Dayak will not allude by name to the small-pox, but will call it 'The chief' or 'Jungle leaves;' the Laplander speaks of the bear as 'the old man with the fur coat;' in Annam the tiger is called 'Grandfather,' or 'Lord.' The Finnish hunters called the bear 'the Apple of the Forest, the beautiful Honey-claw, the Pride of the thicket'" ("The Mythology of Finnland," Fraser's Magazine, May 1857). The Furies, as every one knows, were called the Eumenides, or the gracious ones.

The Rakshases are a kind of huge demons who delight in devouring men and beasts. They can take any shape they please. The female Rakshas often assumes that of a beautiful woman. Compare the demon Mara as described by Fiske at p. 93 of his book above quoted.

The Rakshases do not travel in the way mortals do. See a Dinajpur story told by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary (February 1875, vol. IV. p. 54), where the hero, who has married both the Rakshas-king's daughter and his niece, asks his father-in-law's leave to return home with his Rakshas-wives. The King consents (p. 58), but says, "We Rakshases do not travel in palkis (palanquins), but in the air." Accordingly the prince, his two Rakshas wives and his mortal wife, all travel towards his father's country through the air "along the sky." One kind of jinn travel in the same way (Lane's Arabian Nights, vol. I., "Notes to Introduction," p. 29). So do the drakes and kobolds in Northern Germany. The drake is as big as a cauldron, "a person may sit in him," and travel with him to any spot he pleases. Both drakes and kobolds look like fiery stripes. The kobolds appear sometimes as a blue, sometimes as a red, stripe passing through the air (Thorpe's Northern Mythology, vol. III. pp. 155, 156).

3. Dunkni says, "All Rakshases keep their souls in birds." Those that do so resemble in this respect some of the Indian demons, and the giants, trolls, and such like noxious actors in the Norse, Scotch, and other popular tales.

Tylor (Primitive Culture, vol. II. pp. 152, 153) mentions the Tatar story of the giant who could not be killed till the twelve-headed snake in which he kept his soul was destroyed. This tale, he says, "illustrates the idea of soul-embodiment," and "very likely" indicates the sense of the myths where giants, &c., keep their souls out of their own bodies. The civilized notion of soul-embodiment, he adds (quoting from "Grose's bantering description of the art of laying ghosts in the last century,") is that of conjuring ghosts into different objects: "one of the many good instances of articles of savage belief serving as jests among civilized men." Possibly these giants, trolls, rakshases, demons, once belonged to that class of spirits who could, in popular belief, enter at pleasure into stocks and stones and other objects of idolatrous veneration.

But all Rakshases do not keep their souls in birds. Some have their souls in bees (see a Dinajpur tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for April 6, 1872, p. 115): and in another Dinajpur story printed by Mr. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for June 7, 1872, p. 120, a whole tribe of Rakshases dwelling in Ceylon kept theirs in one and the same lemon.

4. In the first quoted of these stories collected by Mr. Damant, that where the Rakshases keep their life in bees, the hero is a prince who starts in search of the wonderful tree mentioned in paragraph 8 of the note to Phulmati Rani (p. 244). In his wanderings he finds himself in the Rakshas country. There he meets with the woman who when cut up turns into the tree he seeks. When he first sees her she lies dead on a bed with a golden wand on one side of her, and a silver wand on the other. He accidentally touches her with the golden wand and she wakes. She tells him the Rakshases, every morning when they go out in search of food, make her dead by touching her with the silver wand, and wake her with the golden wand when they return at night. Mr. Damant has another story in the Indian Antiquary (July 5, 1872, vol. I. p. 219), from Dinajpur, in which there is a prince Dalim who dies and is laid in a tomb above ground, not buried. Daily the Apsarases, the dancing-girls in the court of Indra, wake him from death by touching his face with a golden wand, and make him dead again by touching him with a silver wand. These wands they always leave lying beside him. His wife comes one day to mourn over him and accidentally discovers the secret of bringing him to life. He is, finally, restored to her by the Apsarases.

5. According to Gubernatis, "three and seven are sacred numbers in Aryan faith" (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 6).

6. Hiralalbasa addresses the Rakshas as "uncle." The two brothers Kanran and Guja (in a Santali fairy tale bearing their name printed by the Rev. F. T. Cole in the Indian Antiquary, September 1875, vol. IV. p. 257), address a tiger by the same propitiatory title. The tiger in return addresses them as nephews, and gives them the fire they want.

"Uncle" and "aunt" are used in a propitiatory sense over a great part of the world. Hunt at p. 6 of his introduction to the Romances and Drolls of the West of England says, "Uncle is a term of respect, which was very commonly applied to aged men by their juniors in Cornwall. Aunt ... was used in the same manner when addressing aged women." "Mon oncle" and "ma tante" are sometimes used in the same way in France. Fiske in his Myths and Mythmakers, pp. 166, 167, tells how the Zulu solar hero Uthlakanyana outwits a cannibal: in this story the hero addresses the cannibal as "uncle," and the cannibal in return calls him "child of my sister." Fiske, quoting from Dr. Callaway, at p. 166, says, "It is perfectly clear that the cannibals of the Zulu legends are not common men; they are magnified into giants and magicians; they are remarkably swift and enduring; fierce and terrible warriors." In the Hottentot story of the "Lion who took a woman's shape," the lion and the woman address each other as "my aunt," and "my uncle" (Bleek's Hottentot Fables and Tales, pp. 51, 52). In Siberia the Yakuts worship the bear under the name of their "beloved uncle" (Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. II. p. 231); and when the Russian peasant calls on the dreaded Lyeshy to appear he cries, "Uncle Lyeshy" (Ralston's Songs of the Russian people, p. 159).

"Grannie" is the word used by Dunkni herself.

7. The Rakshas queen is tricked to her death in the same way as the wicked step-mother in the "Pomegranate King," p. 12 of this collection.

XII.—THE MAN WHO WENT TO SEEK HIS FATE.

1. Compare a Servian story, "Das Schicksal" (Karadschitsch, Volksmaerchen der Serben, p. 106), in which a man sets out to seek his fate, and on the road is commissioned by a rich householder to ask the fate why, though he gives abundance of food to his servants, he can never satisfy their hunger, and why his aged, miserable father and mother do not die: by another man, to ask why his cattle diminish instead of thriving: and, thirdly, by a river whose waters bear him safely across it, to ask why no living thing lives in it. His fate answers all these questions, and instructs him how to thrive himself. In Fraeulein Gonzenbach's Sicilian Fairy Tales, "Die Geschichte von Caterina und ihrem Schicksal," vol. I. p. 130, Caterina is persecuted by her fate, who wears the form of a lovely woman. At last she begs her mistress's fate, to whom she daily carries a propitiatory offering, to intercede for her with her own fate. She is told in answer that her own fate is wrapped in seven veils and so cannot hear her prayer. Finally her mistress's fate leads her to her own. In the same collection, in "Feledico und Epomata" (vol. I. p. 350), Feledico's fate plays a personal part.

This Indian story looks like a relic of stock and stone worship (see Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. II. chapters XIV. and XV.). Compare the man's beating his fate-stone with the treatment the Ostyak gives his puppet. If it is good to him he clothes and feeds it with broth; "if it brings him no sport he will try the effect of a good thrashing on it, after which he will clothe and feed it again" (ib. p. 170). Other examples are given at the same page. These spirits and gods, for whose dwelling-place stocks and stones and other objects had been supplied, were not supposed always to inhabit these abodes; but they did so at pleasure. Compare Elijah's address to the priests of Baal, "Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth" (1 Kings xviii. 27), with Caterina's seven-veiled fate, and the prostrate fate-stone in our story whose spirit-owner was evidently absent on some expedition. These fates may be compared with the patron or guardian spirits of whom Mr. Tylor speaks at pp. 199-203 of the same volume. He says (p. 202), "The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius, 'for thy demon,' said he, 'is in fear of his.'" If one man's demon or genius were at enmity with that of another man, it would probably be friendly to that of a third man, and would therefore be acquainted with its secrets and with its motives of behaviour to the man it guarded. Hence the advice given by her mistress to Caterina to inquire of her own fate from her mistress's fate, and the questions to be put to their fates when found given to the men in the Indian and Servian stories. These questions remind one of those entrusted to the youths in European tales as they journey to the dragon or devil to whom they are sent for destruction. Like the fates in the Indian and Servian stories, these dragons and devils live at the end of a long and difficult journey. Caterina has to climb a mountain to visit her mistress's fate.

2. Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 22), speaking of the three Ribhavas, says, "During the twelve days (the twelve hours of the night or the twelve months in the year) in which they are the guests of Agohyas," &c. So possibly the twelve years in this and other stories in this collection may be the twelve hours of the night. In an unpublished story told by Dunkni, "Prince Husainsa's journey," the prince journeys for twelve years. When he returns home he finds his parents as he had left them—fast asleep in bed. To them the twelve years had only been as one night.

XIII.—THE UPRIGHT KING.

1. The Boar is an avatar of Vishṇu.

2. A ḍom (the d is lingual) is a Hindu of a very low caste.

3. Possibly this king is the same as the king Harichand in the last story but one in the collection, p. 224, and he may also be the Haricchandra of the following letter from Mr. C. H. Tawney:—

"I have been looking up the story of 'Haricchandra.' It is to be found in Muir, vol. I. He gives a summary of it from the Markaṇḍeya Puraṇa. It is also found in the 'Chanda Kaucikam,' and in Mutu Coomara Swamy's 'Martyr of Truth.' The following is Muir's summary summarized. Haricchandra was a king who lived in the Treta age, and was renowned for his virtue, and for the universal prosperity, moral and physical, which prevailed during his reign. One day he heard a sound of female lamentation which proceeded from the Sciences who were becoming mastered by the austere Sage, Vicvamitra, in a way they had never been before. He rushed to their assistance as a Kshatriya bound to succour the oppressed. By a haughty speech he provoked Vicvamitra, and in consequence of his wrath the Sciences instantly perished. (In the 'Chanda Kaucikam,' as far as I remember, we are told that the anger of Vicvamitra interfered with the success of his austerity.) The king says he had only done his duty as a king, which involves the bestowal of gifts on Brahmans and the succour of the weak. Vicvamitra thereupon demands from the king as a gift the whole earth, everything but himself, his son, and his wife. The king gives it him. Then Vicvamitra demands his sacrificial fee; the king goes to Benares, followed by the relentless Sage, the ruler of Civa, and is compelled to sell his wife. She is bought by a rich old Brahman. The son cries and the Brahman buys him too. But Haricchandra has not enough, even now, to satisfy Vicvamitra, so he sells himself to a Chaṇḍala, who is really Dharma, the god of righteousness. The Chaṇḍala (man of the lowest caste), carries off the king, bound, beaten, and confused. The Chaṇḍala sends him to steal clothes in a cemetery. There he lives twelve months. His wife comes to the cemetery to perform the obsequies of her son, who had died from the bite of a serpent. The two determine to burn themselves with the corpse of their son. When Haricchandra, after placing his son on the funeral pyre, is meditating on the Supreme Spirit, the lord Hari Narayaṇa Krishṇa, all the gods arrive headed by Dharma (righteousness) and accompanied by Vicvamitra. Dharma entreats the king to desist from his rash enterprise, and Indra announces to him that he, his wife, and his son have gained heaven by their good works. Ambrosia and flowers are rained by the god from the sky, and the king's son is restored to the bloom of youth. The king, adorned with celestial clothing and garments, and the queen, embrace their son. Haricchandra, however, declares that he cannot go to heaven till he has received his master the Chaṇḍala's permission, and paid him a ransom. Dharma, the god of righteousness, then says that he had miraculously assumed the form of a Chaṇḍala. The king requests that his subjects may accompany him to heaven, at least for one day. This request is granted by Indra; and after Vicvamitra has inaugurated the king's son, Rohitacva, as his successor, Haricchandra, his friends and followers, all ascend to heaven."

XIV.—LOVING LAILI.

1. Majnun is a celebrated lover, whose love for Laili or Laila is the subject of many Eastern poems. In this story he does not play a brilliant part.

2. Laili's knife is like the sun-hero's weapon (the sun's ray), which lengthens at its owner's pleasure (Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. II. p. 147).

3. She cuts her little finger. See "the Bel Princess," p. 141, and paragraph 2 of the note to "Shekh Farid." "The little finger, though the smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows everything." A Piedmontese mother says, "My little finger tells me everything" (Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 166). We have a somewhat similar saying in England. In a Russian story quoted by the same author in the same work (vol. II. p. 151), an old woman while baking a cake, cuts off her little finger and throws it into the fire. From the little finger in the fire is born a strong dwarf who afterwards does many wonderful things. In the tale of the five fingers ("Die Maehr von den fuenf Fingern," Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, p. 325), where each finger decides what it will do, the little one says, "I will help with wise counsel." In consequence of this assistance, to this day, "when any one has a wise idea (Einfall), he says 'that his little finger told him that'" (p. 327). In Finnish mythology we again find the little finger. "The Para, also originated in the Swedish Bjaeren or Bare, a magical three-legged being, manufactured in various ways, and which, says Castren, attained life and motion when its possessor, cutting the little finger of his left hand, let three drops of blood fall on it, at the same time pronouncing the proper spell." ("The Mythology of Finnland," Fraser's Magazine for May 1857, p. 532.)

In Rink's Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 441, there is an account of Kanak's visit to the man of the moon, where he meets a woman who, he is warned, will take out his entrails if she can only make him laugh. He follows the moon-man's advice, which is to rub his leg with the nail of his little finger when he can no longer keep from smiling, and so saves himself from the old hag. Rishya Śringa (to return to the land of our fairy tales) threw a drop of water from the nail of his little finger on a Rakshas who, in the form of a tiger, was rushing to devour him. The demon instantly quitted the tiger's body, and asked the Rishi what he should do. He followed the holy man's instructions and obtained moksha (salvation)—see Indian Antiquary for May 1873, p. 142, "The Legend of Rishya Śringa," told by V. N. Narasimmiyengar of Bangalor.

XV.—HOW KING BURTAL BECAME A FAKIR.

1. The Fakir strikes the dead antelope with his wand (chabuk), as in "Shekh Farid," p. 98. In both cases Dunkni says the wand used was a long, slender piece of bamboo. I do not know whether the bamboo is a lightning-plant. Possibly it is, being a grass (some grasses are lightning-plants, see Fiske's Myths and Mythmakers, pp. 56, 61), and also because its long slender stems are lance-shaped. If it does belong to this class, naturally a blow from a bamboo (or lightning) wand would give life, for, says Fiske (ib. p. 60), "the association of the thunder-storm with the approach of summer has produced many myths in which the lightning is symbolized as the life-renewing wand of the victorious sun-god."

2. The king tries to hide the ball in his hair. The wonderful power and strength of hair appears in tales from all lands: Signor de Gubernatis suggests that, in the case of solar heroes, their hair is the sun's rays (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 117, vol. II. p. 154); and it seems to me possible that, just as the colour of the solar hero's hair has been appropriated by Indian fairy-tale princes who are not solar, the qualities of his hair may have been attributed to that of folk-lore heroes who are not solar, and may also have been the origin of some of the strange superstitions prevalent about human hair. This theory, if correct, would account for most of the strange things that I have hitherto met about hair. It must be remembered that the sun's rays are also his weapons; they turn to thunderbolts when the sun is hidden in the rain-clouds (Gubernatis, ib. vol. I. pp. 9, 17), and also to lightning (see ib. vol. II. p. 10, where the sun under the form of a bull is spoken of as the fire which sends forth lightning).