The Kathá Sarit Ságara; or, Ocean of the Streams of Story
Destiny. For she has placed her foot on the head of all women that
are devoted to their husbands." When the queen had said this, the
king applauded her speech, and so did Rúpasikhá with head modestly
bent. Just at that moment the superintendent of the womens' apartments,
Surakshita, who had been long ago slandered by that Ayasolekhá,
returned from visiting all the holy bathing places. He was announced
by the door-keeper, and bowed delighted at the king's foot, and then
the king, who now knew the facts, honoured him exceedingly. And by
his mouth he summoned the other queens who were wicked, and said to
him--"Go! fling all these into the dungeon." When the queen Gunavará
heard that, and the terrified women were thrown into the dungeon,
she said out of compassion to the king, clinging to his feet, "King,
do not keep them for a long time in the dungeon! Have mercy, for I
cannot bear to see them terrified." By thus entreating the king she
prevented their imprisonment, for the only vengeance that the great
make use of against their enemies is compassion. Then those queens,
dismissed by the king, went ashamed to their houses, and would even
have preferred to have been in the embrace of death. And the king
thought highly of the great-hearted Gunavará, and considered, because
he possessed that wife, that he must have accomplished virtuous acts
in a former state of existence. Then the king, determining to banish
his other sons by an artifice, had them summoned, and spake to them
this feigned speech--"I have heard that you villains have slain a
Bráhman traveller, so go and visit all the holy bathing-places in
succession, do not remain here." When the sons heard that, they were
not able to persuade the king of the truth, for when a ruler is bent
on violence, who can convince him? Then Sringabhuja, beholding those
brothers departing, with his eyes full of tears produced by pity,
thus addressed his father. "Father, pity their one fault, have mercy
upon them." Having said this, he fell at the feet of that king. And
the king, thinking that that son was able to bear the burden of
sovereignty, being even in his youth like an incarnation of Vishnu,
full of glory and compassion, hiding his real sentiments and cherishing
his anger against them, nevertheless did what Sringabhuja asked. And
all those brothers considered their younger brother as the saviour
of their lives. And all the subjects, beholding the exceeding virtue
of Sringabhuja, became attached to him.
Then the next day, his father, king Vírabhuja, anointed as crown-prince
Sringabhuja, who was the oldest in virtue of them all, though he had
elder brothers. And then Sringabhuja, having been anointed and having
obtained the leave of his father, went with all his forces to conquer
the world. And having brought back the wealth of numerous kings, whom
he overcame by the might of his arm, he returned, having diffused
the splendour of his glory through all the earth. Then bearing the
weight of the realm with his submissive brothers, the successful
prince Sringabhuja, giving pleasure to his parents, who remained in
the enjoyment of comfort free from anxiety, and bestowing gifts on
Bráhmans, dwelt at ease with Rúpasikhá as if with incarnate success.
"Thus virtuous women serve their husbands in every way, devoted
to them alone, like Gunavará, and Rúpasikhá, the mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law."
When Naraváhanadatta, in the society of Ratnaprabhá, heard this story
from the lips of Harisikha, he was much delighted and exclaimed,
"Bravo!" Then he rose up, and quickly performed the religious ceremony
for the day, and went with his wife into the presence of his father,
the king of Vatsa, and after eating, and whiling away the afternoon
with singing and playing, he spent the night with his beloved in his
own private apartments.
NOTE ON CHAPTER XXXIX.
In a Norwegian tale, called "The Widow's Son," page 295 of Thorpe's
Yule-Tide Stories, will be found an incident closely resembling
the pursuit of Sringabhuja by Dhúmasikha. The widow's son has,
contrary to the orders of a Troll, in whose house he found himself,
entered several chambers, in one of which he found a thorn-whip,
in another a huge stone, and a water-bottle. In the third he found
a boiling copper kettle, with which he scalded his finger, but the
Troll cured it with a pot of ointment. In the fourth room he found a
black horse in a stall, with a trough of burning embers at its head,
and a basket of hay at its tail. The youth thought this cruel, so he
changed their position. The horse, to reward him, informed him that
the Troll on his return would certainly kill him, and then continued,
"Lay the saddle on me, put on the armour, and take the whip of thorn,
the stone, and the water-flask and the pot of ointment, and then we
will set out." When the youth mounted the horse, it set off at a rapid
rate. After riding some time, the horse said--"I think I hear a noise;
look round, can you see anything?" "A great many are coming after us,
certainly a score at least," answered the youth. "Ah! that is the
Troll," said the horse, "he is coming with all his companions." They
travelled for a time until their pursuers were gaining on them. "Throw
now the thorn whip over your shoulder," said the horse,--"but throw
it far away from me." The youth did so, and at the same moment there
sprang up a large thick wood of briars. The youth now rode on a long
way, while the Troll had to go home to fetch something wherewith to
hew a road through the wood. After some time the horse again said,
"Look back, can you see anything now?" "Yes, a whole multitude of
people" said the youth, "like a church congregation." "That is the
Troll, now he has got more with him, throw out now the large stone,
but throw it far from me." When the youth had done what the horse
desired, there arose a large stone mountain behind them. So the Troll
was obliged to go home after something with which to bore through
the mountain; and while he was thus employed, the youth rode on a
considerable way. But now the horse bade him again look back; he then
saw a multitude like a whole army, they were so bright, that they
glittered in the sun. "Well that is the Troll with all his friends,"
said the horse. "Now throw the water-bottle behind you, but take good
care to spill none on me." The youth did so, but notwithstanding his
caution he happened to spill a drop on the horse's loins. Immediately
there arose a vast lake, and the spilling of a few drops caused the
horse to stand far out in the water; nevertheless he at last swam to
the shore. When the Trolls came to the water, they lay down to drink it
all up, and they gulped and gulped it down till they burst. (Folk-lore
demons experience great difficulty in crossing water.) "Now we are
quit of them," said the horse.
In Laura von Gonzenbach's Sicilianische Märchen, Vol. II, p. 57,
we find a similar incident. In the story of Fata Morgana, a prince,
who carries off a bottle filled with her perspiration, but imprudently
wakes her by kissing her, is pursued by her with two lions. He throws
three pomegranates behind him: the first produces a river of blood,
the second a thorny mountain, the third a volcano. This he does
by the advice of his horse, who is really Fata Morgana's brother
transformed by magic: see also Vol. I, p. 343; cp. also the 79th tale
in Grimm's Kinder- und Hausmärchen (sixteenth edition in one volume)
Die Wassernixe.
In Orient und Occident, Vol. II, p. 113, Dr. Reinhold Köhler, in his
remarks on the West Highland Stories collected by J. F. Campbell,
compares the story of Agnisikha with the second story in Campbell's
collection, entitled: "The Battle of the Birds." In this a king's son
wishes to marry the youngest daughter of a giant. The giant sets him
three tasks to do; to clean out a stable, to thatch it with feathers,
and to fetch eggs from a magpie's nest in the top of a tree more than
five hundred feet high. All these tasks he accomplishes by the help
of the young lady herself. In the last task she makes a ladder of her
fingers for him to ascend the tree by, but in so doing she loses her
little finger. The giant requires the prince to choose his wife from
among three sisters similarly dressed. He recognizes her by the loss
of the little finger. When bed-time came, the giant's daughter told the
prince that they must fly, or the giant would kill him. They mounted on
the gray filly in the stable. But before starting the daughter cut an
apple into nine shares; she put two at the head of the bed, two at the
foot, two at the door of the kitchen, two at the house-door, and one
outside the house. The giant awoke and called "Are you asleep?" several
times, and the shares answered "No." At last he went and found the bed
empty and cold, and pursued the fugitive couple. At the break of day
the giant's daughter felt her father's breath burning her back. She
told the prince to put his hand in the horse's ear, and fling what
he found behind him. He found a sprig of sloe, flung it behind him,
and produced a wood twenty miles long. The giant had to go back for
his axe and wood-knife. In the middle of the day the prince finds
in the ear of the filly a piece of gray stone. This produces twenty
miles of gray rock behind them. The giant has to go back for his lever
and mattock. The next thing, that the prince finds and flings behind
him, is a bladder of water. This produces a fresh-water loch twenty
miles broad. In it the giant is happily drowned. The rest of the
story has no bearing upon the tale of Sringabhuja. Köhler compares
a story in William Carleton's stories of the Irish peasantry. Here
there is a sprig, a pebble and a drop of water producing a wood,
a rock and a lake. He compares also a Norwegian story, Ashbjörnsen,
No. 46, and some Swedish stories collected by Hylten Cavallius and
G. Stephens. The three tasks are very different in the different forms
of the tale. The ladder of fingers is only found in the Celtic form.
It is only in the Gaelic and Irish forms that the objects thrown
behind to check pursuit are found in the ear of the horse.
In the latter form of the story of the Mermaid, Thorpe's Yule-Tide
Stories, p. 205, we have the pursuit with much the same incidents as
in our text. See also Ralston's remarks on the story in our text at
pp. 132 and 143 of his Russian Folk-Tales. Cp. also Veckenstedt's
Wendische Sagen, p. 216. An Indian parallel will be found in Miss
Frere's Old Deccan Days, pp. 62 and 63. A Modern Greek one in Bernhard
Schmidt's Griechische Märchen, pp. 76-79.
Cp. also for the tasks the story of Bisara in Kaden's Unter den
Olivenbäumen, and that of Die schöne Fiorita. Herr Kaden aptly compares
the story of Jason and Medea. Another excellent parallel is furnished
by the story of Schneeweiss-Feuerroth in the same collection, where
we have the pursuit much as in our text.
The pursuit and the tasks are found in the tale called La Montagne
Noire, on p. 448 of Melusine, a periodical which appeared in the
year 1878, and in Branca-flor, No. XIV in Coelho's Contos Populares
Portuguezes, and in Gaal's Märchen der Magyaren, p. 60. The tasks are
found in the Pentamerone of Basile, Vol. I, p. 226, and in Vol. II,
p. 186; in Gaal, Märchen der Magyaren, p. 182, (the title of the tale
is Die dankbaren Thiere; some grateful ants are found at page 339;)
in Grössler's Sagen aus der Grafschaft Mansfeld, pp. 60 and 61; in
Waldau's Böhmische Märchen, pp. 18, 142, 262; in Kuhn's Westfälische
Märchen, Vol. II. p. 249, frogs, ants, and wasps help the hero. Cp. for
the pursuit Liebrecht's translation of the Pentamerone of Basile,
Vol. I, pp. 74-76 and 160.
CHAPTER XL.
Then, the next morning, when Naraváhanadatta was in Ratnaprabhá's