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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
BENGALI FOLKLORE-MORE LEGENDS FROM DINAJPUR.
BY G. H. DAMANT, B. C. S.
(Continued from page 172.)
THE FOURTH STORY.
The Prince and the Sages.
THERE was once a king whose wife bore him a son, and in the night the creator came to write on the child's forehead. The nurse was lying asleep in front of the door, and she awoke and asked who it was that had come. The creator said it was he, and he had come to write on the child's forehead. The nurse said she would open the door for him if he would promise to tell her what he wrote. He refused for a long time, but when she told him that she would not admit him, and he saw that he could not step over her body, he consented. So she opened the door, and he went in, and sat down to write on the child's forehead. He sat behind the child, and wrote three times with his left hand, writing the same words each time, saying that the child should be married when he was twelve years old, and be killed in the following year by the stroke of a thunderbolt. When the creator came out from the room he told the nurse all that he had written, and how the child should be married and die, and then he went away. The nurse brought up the child, and sent him to school to learn reading and writing, but when he was nearly twelve years old she used always to cry when she saw him. One day the king saw her, and said to her, " you have always nursed my child, why do you cry whenever you take him in your arms? you cry every day, he is the only child I have, and if you want anything I will give it you, but tell me why you cry, or I will kill you." She said it was better left untold, but the king insisted on hearing it, so she told him the whole story how the creator had come when the child was five days old, and what he had written on his forehead. The king was very much distressed at what he heard.
[JULY 5, 1872
After a short time the boy also heard the story of his fate, and he went to the king, and said, "I have come to take leave of you, for there is no use in my remaining here, I will go to another country, and if I escape, I will come back again." So he took some money and a horse and went away, and travelled through the countries of many kings till the day of his marriage arrived. In the evening of that day he fastened his horse to the root of a tree, and began to walk about. Now it happened that the daughter of the king of the country was to be married, and she had adorned the bridegroom, and came to that place with him. He ordered the palkee to be put down there, and then went into the jungle. His servants waited some little time, and then finding that he delayed in coming, began to search for him. At last they found the other king's son, and thinking he was the bridegroom they seized him and put him in the palkee. They then took him away and
married him to the princess. In the mean time the real bridegroom came out of the jungle, and found that the palkee and his servants had disappeared, so he went back to the king's palace, and asked who it was that they had takeħ in his stead and married to the princess. The king said he did not know, but ordered the man to be brought, as he wished to see him. So the prince went, and called him, but he said he could not come that day, but would come and introduce himself early the next morning. About three o'clock in the morning the princess said to the prince, "Who are you, where do you live, whose son are you, and how did you contrive to come here and marry me? tell me all about it." The prince replied, "I shall tell you nothing to-night, for I am now going away, but I will give you this lamp, and when it goes out, you will know that I am dead, and as long as it remains alight so long I shall be alive." With these words he took leave of the princess, and went back to the place where he left his horse, and mounted him and rode from country to country till he reached an impenetrable forest where nothing was to be seen but jungle on every side. He travelled on through it till he came to a tank full of lotuses in which the saints and sages who worshipped in the forest used to bathe. Now there was a great quantity of inud all round the tank, which they were forced to pass through every time they went to bathe. The prince seeing this thought that they must be put to great inconvenience, so lie determined to have the tank cleaned, and to build a stone ghât, and save them from further annoyance. Accordingly he collected a number of men and proceeded to clean the tank and build the ghât.
When the saints and sages came to bathe they saw what had been done, and were so much pleased that they said the man who had done it deserved to be im mortal. The prince heard what they said, and putting his cloth over his face came forward with folded hands, and said that he had built the ghat and cleaned the tank. The sages replied, "We have nothing that we can give you in return for the favour you have done us, yet we will grant you a boon, you shall be immortal." The prince answered that he could not be immortal, for it was fated that he should die the next day. The sages enquired how that came to pass, and the prince told them all about it. They replied, "you shall not die to-morrow, we will see to it," so they went away. On the following day all the sages came to the tank, and said to the prince, "O Prince, come with us," so the prince went to them, and they all sat on his body. In the mean time the hour of his
