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170
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
teeth with a stick, and wash yourself, and rinse your rice, and so on. There should be a grove of bamboos on the west to shelter the house from the hot afternoon sun, and the terrible dust-storms which come from that quarter. The south should be open to allow the delicious sea breeze to blow from the south, as it does all the hot weather, and the north should be fenced and planted with trees to keep off the nasty raw northwind which comes in the rains and gives every one fever and rheumatism. This is ingenious but ex post facto, because the same superstition prevails in upper India, where there are no tanks, and where the conditions of wind and seasons are very different; moreover, the rhyme is not in Oriya, but something which looks like bad Hindi of Behar.
You must take care never to call a man back when he is leaving the house, or the business on which he was going will come to nought. His mother may call him back without harm. If you ask why his mother has this privilege, you are told it is because when Krishna was setting forth to kill Kans, his mother Jasoda called him back, and gave him some curds, and as he was successful on that occasion, as everybody knows, a mother's recall has been harmless ever since.
You must not leave empty water-jars about in the front of a house, or else any one who sees
[JUNE 7, 1872.
them when starting on a journey will suffer some accident.
If you knock your head against the lintel of the door when going out, you must sit down for a time before going on. This you might be inclined to do naturally, especially if you got a hard crack.
If you are hit by the pankha used to fan the fire, you must spit thrice, because he who is hit by the pankha dies within the year, unless he transfers the curse to the earth by spitting three times.
In the same way, if you hit yourself on the foot with the chânchuni, a broom made of palm leaves, while you are sweeping the house, you must break off a piece of the leaf, chew, and spit it out.
When a man sneezes, his male friends ought to say "Bhagwan rakhya karuntu," i. e. "May God preserve you !" but women say "Jiu," i. e. "live!" or "achmar ho," a phrase whose meaning is not certain, in consequence of which it is more used than the other.
The ceremonies and precautions necessary to be observed by and towards ladies when in an interesting condition are so numerous and com
plicated that they must be left for another article. I will merely, in conclusion, observe that rice when growing is also considered as a pregnant woman, and the same ceremonies are observed with regard to it, as in the case of human females. (To be continued.)
BENGALI FOLKLORE. BY G. H. DAMANT, B.C.S.
(Continued from page 120.)
THE SECOND STORY. THERE were once seven brothers, labourers, who were all ploughing together. Feeling very thirsty they sent the youngest brother to bring some water from a pond in a cup. Seeing tha the did not return, another brother went in search of him, but he did not return either. At last six of the brothers went one after the other, but none of them came back. Then the seventh brother thought that some misfortune must certainly have befallen them, so he went and looked at the pond from a distance, and saw a goat grazing, and the cup lying near where it had fallen, he then went to give information to the king, and the goat assumed the form of a beautiful woman, and followed him. The labourer called to the king for justice, and told him that the woman was a Rakshasa, who had eaten his six brothers, and wished to eat him; but she replied that he had married her, and
now wished to desert her. Directly the king saw the woman he fell in love with her, and said to the labourer, "If you wish to give her up, I will marry her myself." The labourer did all he could to dissuade the king from doing so, but he paid no attention, and was about to marry her on the spot, when she said, "If you really wish to marry me, place the eyes of your present queen in my hands, and send her to live in the forest; if you promise to do that, I will marry you." The king being enchanted by the wiles of the Rakshasa, took out the eyes of his first queen, and placed them in her hands, and then sent the old queen to live in the forest. After a short time the old queen bore a son, who grew up along with her in the forest, till one day he asked his mother why they lived in that solitary place, and why they had no kinsfolk or friends. His mother
