First there is Samson, whose name, according to Gesenius, means "solar," "like the sun." Of the hero Firud, it is told "that a single hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors" (Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 117). Conan was the weakest man of the Feinn, because they used to keep him cropped. "He had but the strength of a man; but if the hair should get leave to grow, there was the strength of a man in him for every hair that was in his head; but he was so cross that if the hair should grow he would kill them all" (Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. III. p. 396). At p. 91 of Schmidt's Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, is the story of a king, "Der Capitaen Dreizehn," who is "the strongest of his time," and who has three long hairs, so long that they could be twisted twice round the hand on his breast. When these are cut off he becomes the weakest of men. When these grow again he regains his strength. The sun's rays have most power when they are longest, i.e. when the sun is in apogee.

Possibly from this old forgotten myth about the solar hero's hair came some superstition to which was due the Merovingian decree that only princes of the blood-royal should wear their hair long; cutting their long hair made them incapable of becoming kings. Their slaves were shaved. The barbarians ruled that only their free men should wear long hair, and that the slaves should be shaved. Professor Monier Williams, in the Contemporary Review for January 1879, p. 265, says that Govind, the 10th Guru and founder of the Sikh nationality, ordered the Sikhs to wear their hair long to distinguish themselves from other nations.

In the Slavonic story, "Leben, Abenteuer und Schwaenke des kleinen Kerza," is a dwarf magician with a long white beard. With a hair from this beard Kerza binds the magician's wicked wife, who has taken the form of a wooden pillar the better to carry out her evil ends. From that moment it was impossible for her to take again her own shape or to use her former magic powers (Vogl's Volksmaerchen, p. 227). One of the tasks set by Yspaddaden Penkawr to Kilhwch before he will give him his daughter Olwen to wife, is to get him "a leash made from the beard of Dissull Varvawc, for that is the only one that can hold the two cubs. And the leash will be of no avail unless it be plucked from his beard while he is alive, and twitched out with wooden tweezers ... and the leash will be of no use should he be dead because it will be brittle,"—that is, when the sun is set (dead) his rays have no power (Mabinogion, vol. II. p. 288). The same idea lies at the bottom of the English superstition that "if a person's hair burn brightly when thrown into the fire, it is a sign of longevity; the brighter the flame, the longer the life. On the other hand, if it smoulder away, and refuse to burn, it is a sign of approaching death" (Henderson's Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England, p. 84).

The Malays have a story of a woman, called Utahigi, in whose head grew a single white hair endowed with magic power. When her husband pulled it out a great storm arose and Utahigi went up to heaven. She was a bird (or cloud) maiden, and this hair must have been the lightning drawn from the cloud. The Servian Atalanta, when nearly overtaken by her lover, takes a hair from the top of her head and throws it behind her. It becomes a mighty wood (clouds are the forests and mountains of the sky, Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 11), Karadschitsch, Volksmaerchen der Serben, p. 25, in the story "von dem Maedchen das behender als das Pferd ist." In Schmidt's Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, p. 79, the king's daughter as she flies with her lover from the Lamnissa throws some of her own hairs behind her, and they become a great lake (thunderbolts and lightning bring rain). At p. 98 of the same work is the story "Der Riese vom Berge." When this giant wishes to enter his great high mountain, he takes a hair from his head and touches the mountain with it. The mountain at once splits in two (p. 101). The king's daughter in her encounter with the Efreet, "plucked a hair from her head and muttered with her lips, whereupon the hair became converted into a piercing sword with which she struck the lion [the Efreet], and he was cleft in twain by her blow; but his head became changed into a scorpion" (Lane's Arabian Nights, vol. I. p. 156). A Baba Yaga, in Ralston's Russian Folk Tales, p. 147, plucks one of her hairs, ties three knots in it, and blows, and thus petrifies her victims. She is a personification of the spirit of the storm, ib. p. 164. In Old Deccan Days, at p. 62, the old Rakshas says to Ramchundra, "You must not touch my hair;" "the least fragment of my hair thrown in the direction of the jungle would instantly set it in a blaze." Ramchundra steals two or three of the hairs, and when escaping from the Rakshas, flings them to the winds and fires the jungle. Chandra (p. 266 of the same book) avenges the death of her husband by tearing her hair, which burns and instantly sets fire to the land; all the people in it but herself and a few who had been kind to her and are therefore saved, were burnt in this great fire.

In these tales a single hair from the head of the Princess Labam (the lunar ray can pierce the cloud as well as a solar ray) cuts a thick tree-trunk in two, p. 163.

Hair has another property; it can tell things to its owners. See the three hairs the Queen gives Coachman Toms, saying, "They will always tell you the truth when you question them." (Stier's Ungarische Volksmaerchen, p. 176), and which, later in the story (p. 186) adjudge the king worthy of death. (See Grimm's story Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. II. p. 174, "The clear sun brings day.") Also "Das wunderbare Haar" (Karadschitsch Volksmaerchen der Serben, p. 180), which is blood-red, and in which when split open were found written a multitude of noteworthy events from the beginning of the world. (The sun's rays have existed since the early ages of the world.) The girl from whose head the hair is taken threads a needle with the sun's rays and embroiders a net made of the hair of heroes.

See, too, the Eskimo account of the removal of Disco Island in Rink's Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 464, where one old man vainly tries to keep back the island by means of a seal-skin thong which snaps, while two other old men haul it away triumphantly by the hair from the head of a little child, chanting their spells all the time. Their success was, perhaps, due to the spells, not to the hair. In the notes to Der Capitaen Dreizehn in Schmidt's Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, there are some instances of the strength given by hair to those on whom it grows.

2. The lichi is Nephelium Litchi.

3. King Burtal's eldest son's name Sazada is perhaps the boy's title Shahzada (born of a king), prince. Dunkni says it is his name.

XVI.—SOME OF THE DOINGS OF SHEKH FARID.

1. Khelapari means "playful fairy:" Gulabsa, "like a rose."

2. In another version told to me this year by Dunkni, when Gursan Raja wakes and learns how long his wife has stood by him, he is horrified, and refuses the water, saying he does not want it. He tells her that as a reward for her patience and goodness, she shall know of herself everything that happens in other countries—floods, fires, and other troubles; that she shall be able to bring help; and should any one die from having his throat cut she shall be able to restore him to life, by smearing the wound with some blood taken from an incision in her little finger. Khelapari's acquaintance with Shekh Farid begins in this version as follows:—She was standing at the door of her house looking down the road, when she saw coming towards her Shekh Farid, the cartman, and the bullock-cart laden with what once was sugar, but now, thanks to the fakir, is ashes. Through her gift Khelapari knows all that has happened, though the miracle was not performed in her sight; and Shekh Farid being a fakir, though his all-knowing talent does not equal hers, knows that she knows. The cartman is in despair when he discovers the ashes, and implores Shekh Farid to help him. The fakir sends him to Khelapari, saying he must appeal to her as her power of doing good excels his (the fakir's); that though he could turn sugar to ashes, he could not turn the ashes to sugar. Khelapari at the cartman's prayer performs this miracle. Their next encounter is by a tank in the jungle by which the holy man is resting. She is hurrying along to put out the fire at her father's palace. The Shekh cannot understand how it is possible for any woman to know of herself what is happening twenty miles off, when he, a fakir, can only know what passes at a short distance, so he follows the Rani to test her truthfulness, and arrives in time to see her helping to put out the fire. The rest of the story is the same as the version printed in this collection.

3. This Shekh Farid was a famous Sufi saint. He was a contemporary of Nanak, and many of his sayings are embodied in the Granth. In Central India, there is a holy hill of his called Girur. The Gazetteer of the Central Provinces edited by C. Grant, 2nd edition, Nagpur, 1870, says that articles of merchandise belonging to two travelling traders who mocked the saint passed before him, on which he turned the whole stock-in-trade into stones as a punishment. They implored his pardon, and he created a fresh stock for them from dry leaves, on which they were so struck by his power that they attached themselves permanently to his service, and two graves on the hill are said to be theirs. In the Pioneer for 5th August 1878, Pekin has a poem on a similar legend about the saint. Standing on his holy hill, one day Shekh Farid saw a packman pass and he begged for alms. The packman mocked him. Then the saint asked what his sacks contained. "Stones," was the answer. The Shekh said, "Sooth—they are but worthless stones." Whereupon all the sacks burst, and the contents, at one time different kinds of spices, fell stones to the ground. The owner implored the saint's mercy. Shekh Farid told him to fill his sacks with leaves from the trees, which was done, and then the leaves became gold mohurs. The packman turned saint too and left his bones on Girur. A similar miracle is told of the Irish Saint, Brigit. "Once upon a time Brigit beheld a man with salt on his back. 'What is that on thy back?' saith Brigit; 'Stones,' saith the man. 'They shall be stones then,' saith Brigit, and of the salt stones were made. The same man again cometh to (or past) Brigit. 'What is that on thy back?' saith Brigit. 'Salt,' saith the man. 'It shall be salt then,' saith Brigit. Salt was made again thereof through Brigit's word." (Three Middle Irish Homilies, p. 81.)

4. Fakirchand means the moon of fakirs. Mohandas, the servant of the Mohan (Krishṇa). Champakali is a necklace made in imitation of the closed buds of the champa or champak flowers.

5. The demons, in Hindustani dew (pronounced deo), god, are something like the Rakshases. They have wings, and have exceedingly long lips, one of which sticks up in the air, while the other hangs down. One of King Arthur's warriors, "Gwevyl, the son of Gwestad, on the day that he was sad, he would let one of his lips drop below his waist while he turned up the other like a cap upon his head" (Mabinogion, vol. II. p. 266, "Kilhwch and Olwen").

XVII.—THE MOUSE.

1. Unluckily, when Karim was with us, I neglected to write down the name of the grain that kills the mouse, and all the wonderful things he told us of the properties of this grain. His explanations were a kind of note given after he had finished the story.

2. The only parallel I can find to this story is one in Bleek's Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 90, called "The unreasonable child to whom the dog gave its deserts; or a receipt for putting any one to sleep," in which the child indulges in the uncalled for generosity and unreasonable rage of the mouse.

XVIII.—A WONDERFUL STORY.

1. Ajit means unsubdued, invincible.

2. The wrestler's mode of announcing his arrival at Ajit's house is, probably, the solitary result of many efforts to induce Karim himself to knock at the nursery door before he marched into the nursery. I never heard of natives knocking at each other's house-doors.

3. With these wrestlers compare Grimm's "Der junge Riese," Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. II. p. 23, and "Eisenhans" in Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen, p. 77.

4. Ajit carries her house. Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "Compare an Irish story about Fionn and a giant who was told that the hero turned the house when the wind blew open the door." [See, too, Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands, vol. III. p. 184]

5. When Karim was here I forgot to ask him how big were Ajit's cakes, can, and mice. Mr. Campbell of Islay, who read this story in manuscript, wrote in the margin where the mice were mentioned: "The fleas in the island of Java are so big that they come out from under the bed and steal potatoes. They do many such things. Compare [with Ajit's can] a Gaelic story about a man who found the Fenians in an island, and was offered a drink in a can so large that he could not move it."

6. Mr. G. H. Damant, in the Indian Antiquary for September 1873, vol. II. p. 271, has a Dinajpur story called "Two ganja-eaters" which is very like our Wonderful Story. In it a ganja-eater who can eat six maunds of ganja[7] hears of another ganja-eater who can eat nine maunds; so he takes his six maunds of ganja, and sets off for his rival's country with the intention of fighting him. On the road he is thirsty and drinks a whole pond dry, but this fails to quench his thirst. Arrived at the nine-maund ganja-eater's house, he learns from the wife that her husband has gone to cut sugar-cane, and decides to go and meet him. He finds him in the jungle, and wishes to fight there and then; but his rival does not agree to this, saying he has eaten nothing for seven days. The other answers he has eaten nothing for nine; whereupon the nine-maund ganja-eater suggests they shall wait till they get back to his country, as in the jungle they will have no spectators. The six-maund ganja-eater consents. So the nine-maund ganja-eater takes up all the sugar-cane he has cut during the last seven days and sets off for his country with his rival. On the way they meet a fish-wife, and call her to stop and see them fight; she answers she must carry her fish without delay to market, being already late, and proposes they should stand on her arm and fight, and that then she could see them as they go along. While they are fighting on her arm, down sweeps a kite which carries off "the ganja-eaters; fish and all." They are thrown by a storm in front of a Raja's daughter, who has them swept away thinking they are bits of straw.

FOOTNOTE:

[7] An intoxicating preparation of the hemp-plant (Cannabis sativa or C. indica).

XIX.—THE FAKIR NANAKSA SAVES THE MERCHANT'S LIFE.

1. Nanaksa, i.e. Nanak Shah, is doubtless the first guru of the Sikhs (about A.D. 1460-1530).

2. With the transmigration of the souls of the merchant's father, grandmother, and sister into the goat, the old woman and his little daughter, compare a Dinajpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for June 7, 1872, vol. I. p. 172, in which a king threatens to kill a Brahman if he does not explain what he means by saying to the king every day, "As thy liberality, so thy virtue." By his new-born daughter's advice the Brahman tells the king this child would explain it to him. Accordingly the king comes to the Brahman's house and is received smilingly "by the two-and-a-half-days-old daughter. She sends the king for the desired information to a certain red ox, who in his turn" sends him to a clump of Shahara (Trophis aspera) trees. The trees tell him he has been made king in this state of existence, because in a former state of existence he was liberal and full of charity; that in this former state the child just born as the Brahman's daughter was his wife: that the red ox was then his son, and that this son's wife, as a punishment for her hardness and uncharitableness, had "become the genius of this grove of trees."

3. Jabra'il is the Archangel Gabriel.

XX.—THE BOY WHO HAD A MOON ON HIS FOREHEAD AND A STAR ON HIS CHIN.

1. For these marks see paragraph 4 of the notes to Phulmati Rani. I think the silver chains with which King Oriant's children are born (see the Netherlandish story, the Knight of the Swan, quoted in paragraph 3 of the notes to the Pomegranate King) are identical with the suns, moons, and stars that the hero in this and in many other tales possesses. They are his princely insignia and proofs of his royalty. When the boy in this tale twists his right ear his insignia are hidden, and so long as they remain concealed no one can guess he is a king's son, unless he chooses to reveal himself, as he does, partially, through his sweet singing to the youngest princess. With this partial revelation compare the Sicilian "Stupid Peppe" revealing himself in part by means of the ring he gave to his youngest princess. This ring has the property of flashing brightly whenever he is near. (See the story "Von dem muthigen Koenigssohn, der viele Abenteuer erlebte" quoted in paragraph 6 of the notes to this story, p. 280.) The shape of the insignia may have been destroyed, as in the case of the sixth swan's chain, in the Netherlandish story, but its substance remains, and as soon as it reappears the hero clothes himself with his own royal form. Chundun Raja's necklace (Old Deccan Days, p. 230) and Sodewa Bai's necklace (ib. p. 236), in which lay their life, belong, perhaps, to these insignia. Their princely owners' existence depends on their keeping these proofs of their royalty in their own possession, and is suspended whenever the proofs pass into the hands of others.

2. The gardener's daughter promises to bear her husband a son with the moon on his forehead and a star on his chin. Compare "Die verstossene Koenigin und ihre beiden ausgesetzten Kinder," Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 19, where the girl (p. 21) promises to give the king, if he marries her, a son with a golden apple in his hand, and a daughter with a silver star on her forehead. Also compare with our story "Truth's Triumph" in Old Deccan Days, p. 50. In Indian stories, as in European tales, the gardener and his family often play an important part, the hero being frequently the son of the gardener's daughter, or else protected by the gardener and his wife.

3. With the kettle-drum compare the golden bell given by the Raja to Guzra Bai in "Truth's Triumph" (Old Deccan Days, p. 53); and the flute given by the nymph Tillottama to her husband in the "Finding of the Dream," a Dinajpur story published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, February 1875, vol. IV. p. 54. See also paragraph 7, p. 287, of notes to "How the Raja's son won the Princess Labam."

4. Kaṭar (the t is lingual) means cruel, relentless. With this fairy-horse compare the Russian hero-horses in Dietrich's collection of Russian tales, who remain shut up behind twelve iron doors, and often loaded with chains as well, till the advent of heroes great enough to ride them. They generally speak with human voices, are their masters' devoted servants, fight for him, often slaughtering more of his enemies than he does himself, and when turned loose in the free fields, as Kaṭar was in his jungle, till they are needed, always staying in them and coming at once to their master when he calls. See in the collection by Dietrich (Russische Volksmaerchen) No. 1, "Von Ljubim Zarewitch," &c., p. 3; No. 2, "Von der selbstspielenden Harfe," p. 17; No. 4, "Von Ritter Iwan, dem Bauersohne," p. 43; No. 10, "Von Bulat dem braven Burschen," p. 133; Jeruslan Lasarewitsch in the story that bears his name (No. 17, p. 208) catches and tames a wonderful horse near which even lions and eagles do not dare to go, p. 214. And the Hungarian fairy horses (Zauberpferde) who, like the Servian hero-horses, become ugly and lame at pleasure, and speak with human voice, must also be compared to Kaṭar. One in particular plays a leading part in the story of "Weissnittle" (Stier's Ungarische Volksmaerchen, p. 61). He saves the king's son twice from death and then flies with him to another land. He speaks with human voice, advises him in all his doings, and marries him to a king's daughter; Weissnittle obeying his horse as implicitly as our hero does Kaṭar. The heroes' horses in Haltrich's Siebenbuergische Maerchen also speak with human voice and give their masters good counsel. See p. 35 of "Der goldne Vogel;" p. 49 of "Der Zauberross;" p. 101 of "Der Knabe und der Schlange." These last two horses have more than four legs: like Odin's Sleipnir, they each have eight. See, too, the dragon's horse and this horse's brother in "Der goldne Apfelbaum und die neun Pfauinnen" (Karadschitsch, Volksmaerchen der Serben, pp. 33-40). The "steed" in the "Rider of Grianaig," pp. 14 and 15 of vol. III. of Campbell's Tales of the Western Highlands, and the "Shaggy dun filly" in "The young king of Easaidh Ruadh," at p. 4 of vol. I. of the same work, may also be compared; and, lastly, in a list of hero-horses Cuchulainn's Gray of Macha deserves a place. On the morning of the day which was to see his last fight, Cuchulainn ordered his charioteer, Loeg, to harness the Gray to his chariot. "'I swear to God what my people swears,' said Loeg, 'though the men of Conchobar's fifth (Ulster) were around the Gray of Macha, they could not bring him to the chariot.... If thou wilt, come thou, and speak with the Gray himself.' Cuchulainn went to him. And thrice did the horse turn his left side to his master.... Then Cuchulainn reproached his horse, saying that he was not wont to deal thus with his master. Thereat the Gray of Macha came and let his big round tears of blood fall on Cuchulainn's feet." The hero then leaps into his chariot, and goes to battle. At last the Gray is sore wounded, and he and Cuchulainn bid each other farewell. The Gray leaves his master; but when Cuchulainn, wounded to death, has tied himself to a stone pillar to die standing, "then came the Gray of Macha to Cuchulainn to protect him so long as his soul abode in him, and the 'hero's light' out of his forehead remained. Then the Gray of Macha wrought the three red routs all around him. And fifty fell by his teeth and thirty by each of his hooves. This is what he slew of the host. And hence is (the saying) 'Not keener were the victorious courses of the Gray of Macha after Cuchulainn's slaughter.'" Then Lugaid and his men cut off the hero's head and right hand and set off, driving the Gray before them. They met Conall the Victorious, who knew what had happened when he saw his friend's horse. "And he and the Gray of Macha sought Cuchulainn's body. They saw Cuchulainn at the pillar-stone. Then went the Gray of Macha and laid his head on Cuchulainn's breast. And Conall said, 'A heavy care to the Gray of Macha is that corpse.'" Conall himself, in the fight he has with Lugaid, to avenge his friend's slaughter, is helped by his own horse, the Dewy-Red. "When Conall found that he prevailed not, he saw his steed, the Dewy-Red, by Lugaid. And the steed came to Lugaid and tore a piece out of his side." ("Cuchulainn's Death, abridged from the Book of Leinster," Revue celtique, Juin 1877, pp. 175, 176, 180, 182, 183, 185.)

5. The prince makes his escape at five years old. Jeruslan Jeruslanowitsch at the same age sets out in search of his father, Jeruslan Lasarewitsch, equipped as a knight, at p. 250 of the 17th Russian Maerchen in the collection by Dietrich quoted above. He meets and fights bravely with his father, proving himself worthy of him (p. 251). Sohrab, Rustam's famous son, gives proof of a lion's courage at five, and at ten years old vanquishes all his companions (Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 115).

6. The princess chooses the ugly common-looking man. In Old Deccan Days, p. 119, so does the Princess Buccoulee. In the episode of Nala and Damayanti we have the assemblage of suitors, and the public choice of a husband by a princess (svayamvara). Damayanti recognizes the mortal Nala among the gods, (each of whom has made himself resemble Nala) from the fact that the flowers of which Nala's garlands were composed had faded while the garlands of the gods were blooming freshly. In a story from Manipuri told by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, September 1875, vol. IV. p. 260, Prince Basanta, effectually disguised by misery, and travel-stained, arrives with the merchant at a certain place where the king's daughter that day is to choose her husband. The merchant takes his seat among the princely suitors; Basanta a little way off. There is a general storm of scoffings when the princess hangs her garland of flowers round Basanta's neck. In one of Laura Gonzenbach's Sicilian stories, "Von einem muthigen Koenigssohn, der viele Abenteuer erlebte," vol. II. p. 21, we have three kings' sons (brothers) and three princesses (sisters.) The two elder brothers marry the two elder sisters. At a tournament held on purpose that she may choose her husband, the youngest sister, to the general disgust, chooses the youngest prince (disguised as the dirty, ill-dressed servant of the court tailor), and who is not even present as a suitor. Her suitors, princes, have passed before her for three days. After the marriage the prince keeps up the disguise. His brothers by way of amusing themselves at his expense take "Stupid Peppe," as they call him, to the wood to shoot birds; he shoots a great number, while they run here and there and cannot find one. They agree to let him brand them with black spots on their shoulders, on condition he gives them his birds. In the notes to this story, vol. II. p. 240. Herr Koehler gives Spanish, Russian, South Siberian, and others parallels. And in Stier's Ungarische Volksmaerchen, p. 61, in the story of "Weissnittle," we have not only the hero-horse mentioned in paragraph 4 of these notes, but also the assemblage of suitors for the princess to choose her husband: her choice of a seemingly stupid gardener's boy, who has partially revealed himself to her; the prince retaining his disguise, after his marriage, towards every one, even his wife: two brothers-in-law, who are kings' sons and the wife's elder sisters' husbands; their hunting on three different days, each time meeting a handsome prince in whom they do not recognize their despised brother-in-law, Weissnittle, who sells them his game the first day for their wedding-rings, the second for leave to brand them with these rings on their foreheads, the third for permission to brand them with a gallows on their backs: lastly, we have Weissnittle, as a splendid young prince, publicly shaming his brothers-in-law by exposing their branding marks. In India this branding with red-hot pice was the punishment for stealing. Compare in Taylor's Confessions of a Thug, p. 411, Amir Ali's horror at being so branded by the Raja of Jhalone. It was, he says years later, a punishment worse than death, as the world would think him a thief, and he would carry to his grave "a mark only set on the vile and the outcasts from society."

7. Muniya tells me that, in a variation of this story, the dog, cow, and horse each swallow the child three times, but for shorter periods, as he is only five years old when he escapes on Kaṭar. Then when the princess chooses her husband she rides three times round the assemblage of Raja's, who all sit on a great plain, and each time she chooses the pretended old man; for in this version the boy loses his youth as well as his good looks. Instead of taking service with the grain merchant, the boy is told by his horse to go boldly to the king's palace and ask for service there. The shaming of the brothers-in-law happens thus. The boy invites these princes, the king, all the king's servants, and all the people in the king's country, to a grand entertainment in the king's court-house. When they are all assembled he has the six princes stripped and every one mocks at the pice-marks on their backs. These are the only variations in the other version.

Sir George Grey, in his Polynesian Mythology, p. 73, tells how the hero Tawhaki when he climbed into heaven in search of his lost wife "disguised himself, and changed his handsome and noble appearance, and assumed the likeness of a very ugly old man." If fact, he looks such a thoroughly common old man that in the heavens he is taken for a slave instead of a great chief, and treated as such.

XXI.—THE BEL-PRINCESS.

1. Muniya says that telling the prince he would marry a Bel-Princess was equivalent to saying he would not marry at all, for these brothers' wives knew she lived in the fairy-country, and that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the prince to find her, and take her from it.

2. With the fakir's sleep compare that of the dragon who sleeps for a year at a time in the Transylvanian story "Das Rosenmaerchen" (Siebenbuergische Maerchen, pp. 124, 126).

3. In a Greek story, "Das Schloss des Helios" (Schmidt's Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, p. 106), the heroine is warned by a monk that as she approaches the magic castle voices like her brothers' voices will call her; but if, consequently, she looks behind she will become stone. Her two elder brothers go to seek her, and, as they meet no monk to warn them, they become stone. The third brother meets the monk, obeys his warning, and thus, like his sister, escapes the evil fate. To save him from Helios, the sister turns him into a thimble till she has Helios's promise to do him no harm. (Compare the Tiger and Tigress, p. 155 of this collection.) Helios gives him some water in a flask with which he sprinkles the stone brothers, whereupon they and all the other stone princes come to life. In these Indian tales the healing blood from the little finger plays the part of the waters of life and death, found in so many Russian and other European stories.

When reading of the fate of all these princes, it is impossible not to think of Lot's wife.

The danger of looking back, when engaged on any dealings with supernatural powers, is insisted on in the tales and practices of the Russians, Eskimos, Zulus, and the Khonds of Orissa. In Russia the watcher for the golden fern-flower must seize it the instant it blossoms and run home, taking care not to look behind him: whether through fear of giving the demons, who also watch for it, power over him, or whether through a dread of the flower losing its magic powers if this precaution is neglected, Mr. Ralston does not say (Songs of the Russian People, p. 99). When "the Revived who came to the under-world people" (Dr. Rink tells us in his Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, p. 299) took the old couple to visit the ingnersuit (supernatural beings "who have their abodes beneath the surface of the earth, in the cliffs along the sea-shore, where the ordinarily invisible entrances to them are found" ib. p. 46), he warned "them not to look back when they approached the rock which enclosed the abode of the ingnersuit, lest the entrance should remain shut for them.... When they had reached the cliff, and were rowing up to it, it forthwith opened; and inside was seen a beautiful country, with many houses, and a beach covered with pebbles and large heaps of fish and matak (edible skin). Perceiving this the old people for joy forgot the warning and turned round, and instantly all disappeared: the prow of the boat knocked right against the steep rock and was smashed in, so that they all were thrown down by the shock. The son [the revived] said, 'Now we must remain apart for ever.'" Mr. Tylor, in the 2nd volume of his Primitive Culture, at p. 147 mentions a Zulu remedy for preventing a dead man from tormenting his widow in her dreams; the sorcerer goes with her to lay the ghost, and when this is done "charges her not to look back till she gets home:" and he says the Khonds of Orissa, when offering human sacrifices to the earth-goddess bury their portions of the offering in holes in the ground behind their backs without looking round (ib. p. 377).

4. In most of the stories of this kind the command is to open the fruit or casket only near water, for if the beautiful maiden inside cannot get water immediately she dies. Such is the case in the "Drei Pomeranzen" (Stier's Ungarische Maerchen und Sagen, p. 83), in "Die Schoene mit dem sieben Schleier" (Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 73), and in "Die drei Citronen" (Schmidt's Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, p. 71). "Die Ungeborene Niegesehene" (Schott's Wallachische Maerchen, p. 248) must be compared with these, though the beautiful maiden does not come out of the golden fairy-apple. She appears suddenly and the prince must give her water to drink and the apple to eat, before he can take her and keep her. In all these stories the hero has a long journey, and encounters many dangers, in seeking his bride. In the Sicilian story he is helped by hermits; in the Greek story, by a monk—monks in Greek and hermits in Sicilian and Servian stories playing the part of the fakirs in these Indian tales. In all these stories, too, the maiden is killed or transformed by a wicked woman who takes her place. In the Wallachian and Sicilian fairy tales the rightful bride becomes a dove only. But in the Hungarian tale she is drowned in a well and becomes a gold fish; the wicked gipsy has no rest till she has eaten the fish's liver: from one of its scales springs a tree; she has the tree cut down and burnt. The wood-cutter who hews down the tree makes a cover for his wife's milk-pot from a piece of the wood, and they find their house kept in beautiful order from this moment. So to discover the secret, they peep through the keyhole one day and see a lovely fairy come out of the milk-jar. Then they enter their house suddenly and the girl tells her story: the wood-cutter's wife burns the wooden lid to force her to keep her own form, and goes to the king's son to tell him where he will find his Pomegranate-bride again. In the Greek story a Lamnissa eats the citron-girl, but a tiny bone falls unnoticed into the water and becomes a gold-fish. The prince not only takes the Lamnissa home with him, but he takes the gold-fish too, and keeps it in his room, "for he loved it dearly." The Lamnissa never rests till he gives her the fish to eat. Its bones are thrown into a garden and from them springs a rose bush on which blooms a rose which the king's old washerwoman wishes to break off to sell it at the castle. From out of the bush springs the beautiful citron-maiden, and tells the old woman her story. She also gives her the rose for the king's son, and in the basket with the rose she lays a ring he had given her, but charges the old woman to say nothing about her to him. The next day he comes to the old woman's cottage and finds his real bride.

5. The youngest prince alone can gather the lotus-flower and bel-fruit. Compare the Pomegranate-king, pp. 10 and 11, and paragraphs 1 and 4, pp. 245, 252, of the notes to that story. In his Northern Mythology, vol. I., in the footnotes at p. 290, Thorpe mentions a maiden's grave from which spring "three lilies which no one save her lover may gather." I think he must quote from a Danish ballad.

6. The princess after drowning is first in a lotus-flower; then in a bel-fruit again; and, lastly, her body is changed to a garden and palace. Signor de Gubernatis at p. 152 of the 1st volume of his Zoological Mythology mentions an Esthonian story where a girl (she who addressed the crow as "bird of light"—see paragraph 2, p. 259 of the notes to "Brave Hiralalbasa") while fleeing with her lover is thrown into the water by a magic ball sent after them by the old witch, and there becomes "a pond-rose (lotus-flower)." Her lover eats hogs'-flesh and thus learns the language of birds, and then sends swallows to a magician in Finnland to ask what he must do to free his bride. The answer is brought by an eagle; and the prince following the magician's instructions helps the girl to recover her human form. And just as Surya Bai is born again in her mango (Old Deccan Days, p. 87) and the Bel-Princess in her bel-fruit, so is the girl in the Hottentot tale of "The Lion who took a woman's shape" born from her heart in the calabash full of milk in which her mother has put it. The lion had eaten the girl; but her mother burns the lion and persuades the fire in which she burns him to give her her daughter's heart (Bleek's Hottentot Fables and Tales, pp. 55 and 56). With the change into the garden and palace compare the Russian story of a maiden whose servant-girl blinds her and takes her place as the king's wife. After some time the false queen learns her mistress is still living; so she has her murdered and cut to pieces. "Where the maiden is buried a garden arises, and a boy shows himself. The boy goes to the palace and runs after the queen, making such a din that she is obliged, in order to silence him, to give him the girl's heart which she had kept hidden. The boy then runs off contented, the king follows him, and finds himself before the resuscitated maiden" (Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, vol. I. pp. 218, 219). See paragraphs 7 and 8 of the notes to "Phulmati Rani," p. 244, and 1, 3 and 4, pp. 245, 250, 252, of those to "The Pomegranate-king."

7. The commonplace fate of the wonderful palace is deplorable.

XXII.—HOW THE RAJA'S SON WON THE PRINCESS LABAM.

1. The "four sides" in this story (p. 153), the "four directions" (p. 156) which ought to have been translated four sides and the four sides in "The Bed," p. 202, are the four points of the compass. They appear in a Dinajpur story told by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, 5th April 1872, p. 115. In the first Russian fairy tale published by Dietrich, the hero's parents give their elder sons permission "to go on the four sides" when they start on their journeys (Russische Volksmaerchen, p. 1). In another fairy tale in the same collection (No. 11, p. 144) the Prince Malandrach, when he has lost his way flying in the air and is over the sea, raises himself by a last effort and looks on all the "four sides" in search of a resting-place for his foot, p. 147. Of course, too, like orthodox Russians, the Russian heroes generally bow to all the "four sides," before attempting their journeys and adventures.

2. Hiraman is the name of a kind of parroquet. Irik in the Bohemian tale "Princess Golden-Hair" (Naake's Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 99) first hears of the princess's existence from the chattering of birds.

3. "Aunty" was the word used in English by old Muniya.

4. With the stone bowl compare the pot in Grimm's "Der suesse Brei," Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. II. p. 104.

5. With the tigers' coats compare the robes of honour wherewith the knights in the Mabinogion clothe themselves when they go to combat. "And he (Gwalchmai) went forth to meet the knight (Owain), having over himself and his horse a satin robe of honour sent him by the daughter of the Earl of Rhangyw; and in this dress he was not known by any of the host" ("The Lady of the Fountain," Mabinogion, vol. I. p. 67). Peredur wears "a bright scarlet robe of honour over his armour" given him by the king's daughter (ib. p. 363 of "Peredur the son of Evrawc"). And in "The Dream of Rhonabwy" a knight and his horse wear a robe of honour (ib. vol. II. p. 413).

6. With the tigers' fight with the demons compare the combat of the grateful lion with the giant, in which the lion bears the brunt of the battle. On the giant's saying, "Truly, I should find no difficulty in fighting with thee were it not for the animal that is with thee," Owain shuts the lion up in the castle. "The lion in the castle roared very loud, for he heard that it went hard with Owain," so he climbed to the top of the castle, sprang down and "joined Owain. And the lion gave the giant a stroke with his paw, which tore him from his shoulder to his hip, and his heart was laid bare. And the giant fell down dead" ("The Lady of the Fountain," Mabinogion, vol. I. pp. 79, 80).

7. Gubernatis in vol. I. p. 160, of his Zoological Mythology, says, "The drum or kettle-drum thunder is a familiar image in Hindu poetry, and the gandharvas, the musician warriors of the Hindu Olympus, have no other instrument than the thunder." "The magic flute is a variation of the same celestial instrument," ib. p. 161.

8. For the hair, see note to "How King Burtal became a Fakir," paragraph 2, p. 268.

XXIII.—THE PRINCESS WHO LOVED HER FATHER LIKE SALT.

1. With the task of pulling out the needles, the purchase of the maid-servant, the sleep of the princess, the usurping of her place by the maid who makes the prince believe the princess is her servant-girl, compare "Der boese Schulmeister und die wandernde Koenigstochter," in Laura Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 59. Here, too, the princess is driven forth from her home; she finds a prince lying dead with a tablet by him on which is written, "If a maiden will rub me seven years, seven months and seven days long with grass from Mount Calvary, I shall return to life, and she shall become my wife" (p. 61).

2. Sun-jewel box. The word thus translated is Rav-ratan-ke-pitara. Ravi, sun; ratan, jewel; pitara, a kind of box.

3. In one of Grimm's stories, "Die Gaensehirtin am Brunnen," Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. II. p. 419, a king asks his three daughters how much they love him (p. 425). The eldest loves him as much as the "sweetest sugar," the second as much as her "finest dress," and the third as much as salt. So her father in a rage has a sack of salt bound on her back, and makes two of his servants take her away to the forest. See also Auerbach's Barfuessele, Stuttgart, 1873, ss. 236, 237.

XXIV.—THE DEMON IS AT LAST CONQUERED BY THE KING'S SON.

1. The leading idea of this story is the same as that in "Brave Hiralalbasa."

2. With this demon as a goat, compare the Rakshas in the Pig's Head Soothsayer in Sagas from the Far East, p. 63, and the Rakshas in a Bengali story printed by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, 7th June, 1872, p. 120. This last story opens with seven labourers, brothers, six of whom go down to the water to drink and never return. The seventh goes to see what has happened to them, and finds, instead of his brothers, a goat which is really a Rakshas. This goat then turns into a beautiful woman who marries the king, first making him give into her hands the eyes of his queen, who is sent blind into the forest, where she bears a little son. The Rakshas wife learns this, and when the boy later takes service with the king she sends him three times to her people in Ceylon, with orders to them to kill him. He has to bring her foam from the sea, a wonderful rice which is sown, ripens, and can be boiled in one day, and a singular cow. With the help of a Sannyasi (a Brahman of the fourth order, a religious mendicant), he does these errands safely. The Rakshases in Ceylon receive him as their sister's son, show him his own mother's eyes and the clay with which they can be set again in any human sockets, a lemon which contains the life of the tribe, and a bird in which is that of the Rakshas-queen. The boy cuts up the lemon, and thereby kills them all, carries her eyes to his mother, and kills the Rakshas-queen by killing the bird. In this story, as in "Brave Hiralalbasa," the Rakshas-queen takes her own fearful form on seeing her danger.

3. The Bargat, fig-tree, is the Ficus Bengalensis of Linnaeus.

4. Muniya sends her hero for a Garpank's feather; Garpank I can find in no dictionary, but have ventured to translate it by eagle, as she says it is like a kite, only very much bigger; she sent us to see a statue of a garpank that stood over a gateway in a street in Calcutta, which might be that of an eagle or of a huge hawk. She said such birds did not exist in Bengal, and that it was not the Garuḍa (the sovran of the feathered race and vehicle of Vishṇu, Benfey). Gubernatis, in the 2nd volume of his Zoological Mythology, p. 189, tells a story from Monferrat where a king is blind, and can only be cured by "bathing his eyes in oil with a feather" of a griffin that lives on a high mountain. His third and youngest son catches and brings him one of the griffins and the king regains his sight.

5. Winning the gratitude of a bird by killing the snake or dragon that year after year devours its young birds is such a common incident in fairy tales, that I will only mention two instances. One occurs in a Dinajpur tale published by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for 5th April, 1872, p. 145, where the hero saves the young birds from the snake. They tell the old birds. He lies under the tree and listens to the old birds relating how he will find the tree with the silver stem and golden branches he has come to seek. The other occurs at pp. 119, 110, of a story collected by Vogl (Volksmaerchen [Slavonic], p. 79) called Schoen-Jela. In this tale the hero is sheltered in the dreadful underground wilderness by a hermit. Here there is the gigantic bird, Einja, who every third year has a brood of four young birds which a dragon as regularly devours. The hero, Prince Milan, watches by the nest for the dragon and kills him. The young birds, overjoyed, fly out of the nest and cover the hero with their wings till the old bird on her return asks who has saved them. Then they unfold their wings and she sees Prince Milan. In return she carries him to the upper world.

6. The word translated "night-growing rice" is Rat-vasha-ke-dhan; and the ayah's description of this rice is given in the story. In this description she spoke of it as chawal, the common word for uncooked rice, and said the Rakshas wished to drink its kanji-pani (rice-water). As it is a fairy plant I am afraid it is hopeless trying to find its botanical name. Unluckily, Dr. George King says vasha is not rice at all. This is what he wrote to me on the subject: "Vasha is, I suppose, the same as vasaka, and in that case is Justitia Adhatoda, a straggling shrub common over the whole of India [very unlike the Rat-vasha-ke-dhan] and which was in the Sanscrit as it is in the native pharmacopoeias. It is not a kind of rice, but belongs to the natural order of Acanthaceae (the family to which Acanthus and Thunbergia belong)." This night-growing rice may be compared to the day-growing rice in paragraph 2, p. 288, of the notes to this story.

7. Compare with the paper boat the rolled-up burdock leaf given to the hero by the dwarf in the seventh Esthonian tale quoted by Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. I. p. 155): whenever this hero wishes to cross water he unrolls his burdock-leaf. Gubernatis compares this leaf to the lotus-leaf on which the Hindus represented their god as floating in the midst of the waters (ibid.).

8. With the great wind that comes from the demon, compare the following Swedish account of a giant in Thorpe's Northern Mythology, vol. II. p. 85. He asks his road of a lad, who directs him: then "he went off as in a whirlwind, and the lad now discovered, to his no small astonishment, that his forefinger with which he had pointed out the way had followed along with the giant." In the old Scandinavian belief the Giant Hraesvelgr sat at the end of heaven in an eagle's garb (arna ham). From the motion of his wings came the wind which passed over men (ib. vol. I. p. 8). It must be mentioned also that "in the German popular tales the devil is frequently made to step into the place of the giants" (ib. vol. I. p. 234), and that Stoepke or Stepke is in Lower Saxony an appellation of the devil or of the whirlwind, from which proceed the fogs which spread over the land (ib. p. 235). The devil sits in the whirlwind and rushes howling and raging through the air (Mark Sagen, ib. p. 377). The whirlwind is also ascribed to witches. If a knife be cast into it, the witch will be wounded and become visible (Schreiber's Taschenbuch, 1839, p. 323; ib. vol. I. p. 235). Mr. Ralston, in his Songs of the Russian People, p. 382, says the Russian peasant attributes whirlwinds to the mad dances in which the devil celebrates his marriage with a witch, and at p. 155 of the same book tells us how the malicious demon Lyeshy not only makes use of the whirlwind as a travelling conveyance for himself and a means of turning intruders out of quarters he had selected for his own refuge, but sends home in it people to whom he is grateful. In Ireland we find a wind blowing from hell. King Loegaire tells Patrick, "I perceived the wind cold, icy, like a two-ridged spear, which almost took our hair from our heads and passed through us to the ground. I questioned Benen as to this wind. Said Benen to me, 'This is the wind of hell which has opened before Cuchulainn.'" Lebar na huidre, p. 113 a. This "wind of hell" makes one think of the sweet-scented wind from the mid-day regions, and the evil-scented wind from the north, which in old Persian religious belief blew to meet pure and wicked souls after death (Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. II. pp. 98, 99). Mr. Tylor mentions also the Fanti negroes' belief that the men and animals they sacrifice to the local fetish are carried away in a whirlwind imperceptibly to the worshippers (ib. p. 378).

8. Abjhamjham-ke pani is what has been translated by "water from the glittering well."

9. The king had a great pit dug in the jungle. This is how Kai and Bedwyr plucked out the beard of Dillus Varvawc, which had to be plucked out during life. They made him eat meat till he slept. "Then Kai made a pit under his feet, the largest in the world, and he struck him a violent blow, and squeezed him into the pit. And there they twitched out his beard completely with the wooden tweezers; and after that they slew him altogether" ("Kilhwch and Olwen," Mabinogion, vol. II. p. 304).

XXV.—THE FAN PRINCE.

1. The boat would not move because the king had forgotten to get the thing his youngest daughter had asked him to bring her. Signor de Gubernatis (Zoological Mythology, vol. II. p. 382) mentions an unpublished story from near Leghorn in which a sailor promises to bring his youngest daughter a rose. The eldest daughter is to have a shawl, and the second a hat. "When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but having forgotten the rose, the ship refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for a rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that had happened. The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be King Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man."

2. The princess's ring recalls Portia and Nerissa.

3. A yogi is a Hindu religious mendicant.

XXVI.—THE BED.

The merchant's son possibly was afraid of incurring the wrath either of an original spirit residing in the tree, or of some human soul who had been born again as its genius (see paragraph 1, p. 276, of note to "The fakir Nanaksa saves the merchant's life"). Muniya could give no reason for his asking each tree's permission to cut it down.

XXVII.—PANWPATTI RANI.

See another version of this tale in the Baital Pachisi, No. 1. There the heroine is called Padmavati, and her father King Dantavat.

XXVIII.—THE CLEVER WIFE.

1. The merchant's wife tricks the four men into chests. Upakosa makes the like appointments, and plays a similar trick: compare her story translated from the Kathapitha by Dr. G. Buehler in the Indian Antiquary for 4th October, 1872, pp. 305, 306: and in "The Touchstone," a Dinajpur legend told by Mr. G. H. Damant at p. 337 of the Indian Antiquary for December, 1873, the hero-prince's second wife, Prannasini, in order to regain the touchstone for her husband (like Upakosa and the Clever Wife) makes appointments with, and then tricks, the kotwal, the king's councillor, the prime minister, and lastly the king himself.

2. She plays cards (tas). Forbes in his Hindustani and English Dictionary p. 543, says tas is the word used for Indian playing cards. The Indian pack, he says, contains eight suits, each suit consisting of a king, wazir, and ten cards having various figures represented on them from one to ten in number.

[A close parallel to this tale is Adi's Wife, a Bengali legend from Dinagepore, told by the late Mr. Damant in the Indian Antiquary for January, 1880, p. 2.]

XXIX.—RAJA HARICHAND'S PUNISHMENT.

1. This king is probably the same as "The Upright King," Harchand Raja, p. 68 of this collection.

2. The Kop Shastra. Muniya says kop is a Hindustani, not a Bengali word, and has nothing whatever to do with demons. This is what Mr. Tawney writes on the subject: "It might mean kapi, or kapila if the woman is a Bengali. Kapi is a name of Vishṇu, possibly it might be the Ramayana as treating of monkeys, but I really do not know. I see Monier Williams says that there are certain demons called kapa. But of course kopa is anger. I suppose you know that the natives of Bengal pronounce the short a as o in the English word hop." Muniya pronounces kop like the English word cope. This Shastra seems as hopelessly mythical as the Rat-vasha-ke-dhan.

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

In a Servian story, "Des Vaters letzter Wille," pp. 134, 135, 136, of the Volksmaerchen der Serben collected by Karadschitsch, the youngest brother has to take his brother-in-law's horse over a bridge under which he sees an immense kettle full of boiling water in which men's heads are cooking while eagles peck at them. He then passes through a village where all is song and joyfulness because, so the inhabitants tell him, each year is fruitful with them and they live, therefore, in the midst of plenty. Then he sees two dogs quarrelling which he cannot succeed in separating. He next passes through a village where all is sorrow and tears because each year comes hail, so the inhabitants "have nothing." Next he sees two boars fighting together and cannot separate them any more than he could part the dogs. Lastly, he reaches a beautiful meadow. In the evening his brother-in-law expounds the meaning of all he has seen. The heads in the boiling vessel represent the everlasting torment in the next world. The happy villagers are good, charitable men, with whom God is well pleased. The dogs are his elder brothers' wives. The sorrowing villagers are men who know neither righteousness, concord, nor God. The boars are his two wicked elder brothers. The meadow is paradise.



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GLOSSARY.

Bel, a fruit; AEgle marmelos.

Bulbul, a kind of nightingale.

Chaprasi, a messenger wearing a badge (chapras).

Cooly (Tamil kuli), a labourer in the fields; also a porter.

Dal, a kind of pulse; Phaseolus aureus, according to Wilson; Paspalum frumentaceum, according to Forbes.

Dom (the d is lingual), a low-caste Hindu.

Fakir, a Muhammadan religious mendicant.

Ghee (ghi), butter boiled and then set to cool.

Kazi, a Muhammadan Judge.

Kotwal, the chief police officer in a town.

Lichi, a fruit; Scytalia litchi, Roxb.

Maharaja (properly Maharaj), literally great king.

Maharani, literally great queen.

Maina, a kind of starling.

Maund (man), a measure of weight, about 87 lb.

Mohur (muhar), a gold coin worth 16 rupees.

Nautch (natya), a union of song, dance, and instrumental music.

Palki, a palanquin.

Pice (paisa), a small copper coin.

Pilau, a dish made of either chicken or mutton, and rice.

Raja, a king.

Rakshas, a kind of demon that eats men and beasts.

Rani, a queen.

Rohu, a kind of big fish.

Rupee (rupiya), a silver coin, now worth about twenty pence.

Ryot (raiyat), a cultivator.

Sarai, a walled enclosure containing small houses for the use of travellers.

Sari, a long piece of stuff which Hindu women wind round the body as a petticoat, passing one end over the head.

Sepoy (sipahi), a soldier.

Wazir, prime minister.

Yogi, a Hindu religious mendicant.

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LIST OF BOOKS REFERRED TO.

Bleek. Hottentot Fables and Tales, London, 1864.

Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the West Highlands, 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1860.

Dasent, G. Norse Tales, Edinburgh, 1859.

Dietrich, Anton. Russische Volksmaerchen, Leipzig, 1831.

Fiske. Myth and Mythmakers, London, 1873.

Frere, Miss. Old Deccan Days, 2nd edition, London, 1870.

Gonzenbach, Laura. Sicilianische Maerchen, Leipzig, 1870.

Grant, C. Gazetteer of India for the Central Provinces, edited by, 2nd edition, Nagpur, 1870.

Grey. Polynesian Mythology, London, 1855.

Grimm. Kinder und Hausmaerchen, 3 vols., Goettingen, first 2 vols. 1850, 3rd vol. 1856.

Grimm. Irische Elfenmaerchen, uebersetzt von den Bruedern Grimm, Leipzig, 1826.

Gubernatis, Angelo de. Zoological Mythology, 2 vols., London, 1870.

Guest, Lady Charlotte. The Mabinogion, translated by, 3 vols. Llandovery, 1849.

Haltrich, Joseph. Deutsche Volksmaerchen aus dem Sachsenlande in Siebenbuergen, Berlin, 1856.

Henderson. Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Border, London, 1866.

Hunt. Romances and Drolls of the West of England, 2nd edition, London, 1871.

Indian Antiquary, vols. I. (1872), II. (1873), and IV. (1875), Bombay.

Karadschitsch, W. S. Volksmaerchen der Serben, Berlin, 1854.

Lane. Arabian Nights, 3 vols., London, 1859.

Lebar na Huidre. Lithographic facsimile, Dublin, 1870.

Milenowsky. Maerchen aus Boehmen, Breslau, 1853.

Naake. Slavonic Fairy Tales, London, 1874.

Old New Zealand, 1876.

Ralston. Songs of the Russian People, London, 1872. Russian Folk Tales, London, 1873.

Rink. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, Edinburgh and London, 1875.

Sagas from the Far East, London, 1873.

Schmidt, G. Griechische Volksmaerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder, Leipzig, 1877.

Schott. Wallachische Maerchen, Stuttgart und Tuebingen, 1845.

Stier, G. Ungarische Maerchen und Sagen, Berlin, 1850. Ungarische Volksmaerchen, Pesth (preface is dated 1857).

Taylor, Meadows. Confessions of a Thug, London, 1873.

Thorpe. Yule Tide Stories, London, 1853.

Three Middle Irish Homilies, Calcutta, 1877.

Tylor. Primitive Culture, 2nd edition, London, 1873.

Vogl, Johann, N. Volksmaerchen [Slavonic], Wien, 1837.

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INDEX.

Adam and Eve, blackened after the Fall, 239

Alligator, 63 King of the Fishes, 66, 71

Angels, 77, 88, 116, 225

Antelopes, 85

Ants, grateful, 155, 161

Apsarases, 262

Ashes, Laili becomes, 77 sugar turned into, 96

"Aunt," used to propitiate, 157, 262

Avatar, 265

Badshah, 237

Bag, magic, 156

Bamboo wand, 86, 98, 268

Barber outwits tigers, 35

Bear, 254 tries to kill cat, 19

Beauty, effects of, 62, 93, 142 radiance of, 1, 240, 241, 242

Bed, 201 magic, 156

Bees, Rakshases keeping their souls in, 261

Bel Princess, 138, 282

Bhagirathi river, 75

Birds, souls in, 58, 59, 61, 261 conversing, 149, 150, 198

Birth-marks, 1, 119, 242, 243, 253, 276

Blindness cured, 77

Blood of little finger, 83, 84, 141, 272

Boar, God in shape of, 68

Boar Trwyth, the, 241

Boat refusing to move, 195, 292

Body, star on, 243 sun on, 243

Bones of daughter sent to mother, 12, 250, 253

Bowl, magic, 156

Branch, cutting, 30

Branding, 131, 134, 281

Bricks turned into gold, 97

Bulbul, 39

Burning alive, 12, 61, 207, 249, 250

Camel, strayed, 29, 63

Card-playing, 218, 219, 234

Cards, 293

Cat, 255 aunt to tiger, 15 cheats jackal, 19 leopard, 19 which could not be killed, 18

Chaṇḍala, 266

Charcoal, gold and silver turned into, 69, 226

Chests, concealment in, 218

Child, all-devouring, 255

Children eaten, 52, 177

Chin, star on, 119

Clothes-box, magic, 33

Cloud-myth, 257

Cockatoo, Rakshas Rani's soul in, 61

Colour, 93

Comfits, rain of, 29

Cooking-pot, magic, 32

Cotton-tree, 39

Cow swallows child alive, 123

Crow, 75

Cuckoo, 39

Daughter, see Former life.

Day and night Myths, 256, 257

Dead sheep mistaken for woman, 28

Deer's horn, Mahadeo's, 232

Demon, 173 as a goat, 173, 288 heating sand, 236 swallowing suitors, 99 tigers fighting with, 162

Dew (Demon), 273

Dharma, 265

Diamond, face shining like, 69

Dog disputes with cat, 16 Laili becomes, 78, 79 swallows child alive, 122

Dolls, 168, 169

Dom, 70

Doves, eyes changed into, 5

Dream, 232

Dresses, seizure of, 6

Eagle's feather, 181

Eaglets, speaking, 183

Earth blown away, 140 cure with, 198, 199

Ear, twisting, 130

Elephant tries to kill cat, 18, 19

Errands, 53, 55, 58, 179, 181, 184, 189, 288

Euphemisms, 259

Eve, see Adam.

Eyes become birds, 5, 148 pounded to bits, 176 torn out of Rani's head 51, 176, 289

Face, star on, 1, 242, see Powder.

Fainting at beauty, 82

Fairies in jungle, 32 teach monkey prince, 42 and Prince Sazada, 93 Indian, 243 Irish and Cornish, 243 of Maoris, 239, 244

Fairy Rajas, 1 red, 168

Fakir's feats, 92 gifts to, 68, 224 God in form of, 224 helpful, 41, 185 sleep of, 139, 167 tasks to be performed by intending, 87

Fan, 196, 197

Fan Prince, 193

Farid, Shekh, 272

Fasting, see Jackal, Kite.

Fate, 263 seeking one's, 63

Feather, causing invisibility, 59

Feats of Fakirs, 92

Figure of clay, water and ashes 78

Fish, cooked, becomes alive, 71, 227, see Rohu.

Fishes, king of, 66, 71 souls of unborn children in, 235, 236

Fire, see Rejuvenescence.

Flower, children in, 10, 247, 248, 252 hero weighing, 2 heroine weighing, 1

Flowers, life in, 4, 10, 144, 244, 247, 248, 252, 284 on ears, 3

Flute, 168, 169, 171, 287

Fly, change into, 56, 57, 141

Fools, 257

Former life, 115, 276

Four sides, 153, 156, 285, 286

Fox, 254

Frog, the voracious, 24 slit open, 26

Fruits, children, born from eating, 42, 91 children in, 11, 246, 247, 252 heroine in, 81, 142, 146, 246

Gambling, 234

Ganga, 89, 90

Gardener, 277

Garpank, 289

Gesture language, 208, 210

Glass powder, 197

Glittering well, 189, 190

Goat, demon in form of, 173, 288, see Former life.

Gold, stones becoming, 59 bricks turned into, 97 in river, 66

Golden wand, 262

Grateful animals, 155, 161, 162

Hair, power of, 268, 271 of Mahadeo, 89, 90 of gold, 1, 49, 62, 238, 240 tree split with, 163

Hand, star on, 253

Handkerchief, 199

Harchand Raja, 68

Harichand Raja, 224

Haricchandra, 265, 266

Head, sun on, 1, 242, 253 becomes a dome, 148 a house, 5 a peacock, 244

Head-collars, 230

Heart becomes tank, 148

Horse, hero's, 124, 125, 126, 277, 278 swallows child alive, 124, 125

House, arm or leg changed into, 5

Husband, public choice of, 128, 280

Husk story, 259

Ikhwan Ussafa cited, 239

Indrasan, 93, 243

Invisibility caused by feather, 59 by blowing earth from palm, 140

Jackal, 75, 255 arbitrates, 16 cheats the tiger, 17 its fear of men, 23 kills kite's sons, 22 will not fast, 21

Jamna, 89, 90

Kettle-drum, 120, 121, 162, 287

Khuda, 237

Kite worships and fasts, 21

Knife, magic, 83, 266 dipped in blood, 175, 176

Knowledge of far-off events, 95, 272

Kop Shastra, 225

Laili, 73

Lamnissa, 284

Leg becomes pillar, 148

Lemon, Rakshases keeping their souls in, 261

Leopard tries to kill cat, 19

Lichi, 91

Life, restoration to, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 22, 26, 71, 78, 83, 84, 86, 98, 141, 146, 151, 166, 227, 228, 232, 245, 247, 248, 250, 251, 253, 255, 256, 257, 282, 284, 285

Life, former, 115, 276

Lips of demons long, 273

Little finger, 83, 141, 266, 267, 272

Livers, standing on, 10

Looking back, prohibited, 141 danger of, 282

Lotus-flower, heroine changed into, 144, 285

Magic gifts, 32, 33, 34

Mahadeo, 89, 90, 231, 232

Maina, 148 advises dog, 18 demon's soul in, 187, 188

Majnun, 73, 266

Mangoes, 41 mango-tree, 202 mango-stone, consequence of eating, 50

Mattresses thrown to save drowning prince, 47

Milk sent by God, 146 of tigress, 178

Monkey, 42

Moon on hand, 1 on forehead, 119, 242 princess shines like, 158

Mothers eating sons, 52, 177

Mouth, demon's, 185

Mouse, 101

Music, 93, 243, 287

Mustard-seed, oil crushed out of, 160

Nabha, 113

Nanak, 276

Neck, star on, 242

Necklace disappears into wall, 229 reappears, 233

Needles, body stuck full of, 165, 287

Numbers, sacred, 262

Ointment restoring sight, 56

Old woman, see Former life.

Paper boat, 187, 188, 290

Parrot, 148, 153

Peacock, head becomes, 244

Pearls drop from bird's eyes, 12 from bird's beak, 254

Phalana country, 73, 74

Phulmati, 240

Pigeons, cooked, come to life, 228

Pin, in bird's head, 12, 14 transformation caused by, 254

Pit dug for demon's execution, 192 for Dillus Varvawc, 292

Poison, 212

Portrait, 223

Powder flung in face, 77

Rakshas, 5, 260 as a goat, 288 turned into Rani, 51

Rat and frog, 24

Red cheeks, 93

Rejuvenescence by fire, 76

Revival of murdered heroines, 244, see Life.

Rice, 289 night-growing, 184

Rig Veda cited, 238, 239

Ring, 199, 292

Robes of honour, 287

Rohu fish, 75

Rope and stick-magic, 34, 156

Ruby, 65, 66 falling from beak, 13, 14

Salt, 171, 288 Princess who loved her father like, 164

Sari, 58

Seven children, 51 queens, 175 small dolls, 168 sons, 177 wives, 41, 51

Shahzada, 271

Shekh Farid, 95, 268, 272

Shield full of money, 53, 55, 58

Sight restored, 57, 190, 289

Silver, see Charcoal, Wand.

Singing, hero, 127, 128

Skin of monkey, 42 burnt, 49

Sleep, fakir's, 139, 167 dragon's, 282

Snake, 75 conversing, 204

Son-in-law how chosen, 42

Soul embodiment 261, see Birds, Cockatoo, Lemon, Maina.

Soul or life of Rakshas, 56, 57, 261

Spell, 91

Star on body, 243 on chin, 119 on face, 1, 242 on hands, 253 on neck, 242

Stepmother, 7

Stick and rope, magic, 156

Stick suspends and restores life, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 186

Stones becoming gold, 59 fates are, 64 transformation into, 140, 226, 282 substituted for baby, 121

Strength, feats of, 108

Strong woman, 108

Sugar, see Ashes.

Summer and winter myth, 257

Sun on head, 1, 242, 253 on body, 243

Sun jewel-box, 167

Sun's rays, 266, 268, 271

Svayamvara 280

Sweeper, 88

Tank, heart becomes, 148

Thorn in tiger's foot, 17, 64, 155

Three, 87

Tiger, 254, 258 grateful, 65, 155, 162, 180 outwitted by barber, 35 nephew of cat, 15 stores of, 35, 36, 65, see Thorn.

Transformations, 244, 250, 251, 284, 285

Transmigration of souls, 276

Tree split with hair, 163

Trees, 292

Twelve hours, 225 twelve years, 32, 63, 64, 87, 88, 98, 167, 225, 264

"Uncle" used to propitiate, 54, 262

Underground palace, 151

Varṇa, 238

Vicvamitra, 265

Vishṇu, 265

Wand, bamboo, 86, 98, 268 golden, reviving by, 261 silver, death caused by touching with, 261

Water, opening fruit or casket containing maiden near, 284

Water-nymphs, 89

Water-snake, 53

Wax hatchet, 162

Weight of heroine, 243

Well, fairy living at bottom of, 168 glittering, 189, 190

Wind blowing from demon, 185, 290 foretelling fall of palace, 205

Wishes, 95

Wives called Mamma, 86, 87

Worship, see Kite.

Wrestlers, 108

Yogi, personating, 198, 214



LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.



Transcriber's Note

Printer errors (for example, omitted or transposed characters) have been repaired, as have punctuation errors.

Variable spelling, hyphenation and use of accents are preserved as printed in quoted material, but have otherwise been made consistent where there was a clear prevalence of one form over the other.

Some of the spelling of Hindi words vary from modern spelling, and these have been preserved as printed. There is also some variation within the text—for example, dhall is used in the text while the glossary shows Dal. These are also preserved as printed.

There are some discrepancies between the title of stories as given in the index and main text, and in the notes at the end. These have been preserved as printed.

Errors in page references in the index have been repaired.