________________
206
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1880.
"Uncle," asked Bôpô Lüchi," that peacock On the road she met the shag who was returnscreams funnily, what does it say?"
ing with a stolen mill-stone on his head. She “Oh," answered the thag, "all peacocks make was dreadfully frightened, so she slipped behind that noise about here."
the hedge so as not to be seen. The thag did A little further they met a jackal-no sooner not know her in his mother's dress, but thought did it see pretty B pd Lüchỉ than it began to she was some strange woman from another howl
village, so he slipped behind the other hedge so Bðpð Lúchí!
as not to be seen. And so it was that Bôpô Aqlon ghuthi,
Lûchi ran away home safe. Thag nál thagi gayi.
When the thag came to his house he saw the Bôpô machi!
figure in bridal scarlet" sitting on the bridal You have lost your wits,
chair spinning, and thought it was Bôpô Lüchi. You have been deceived by a thag." So he called to her to help him down with the “Uncle," said Bôpô Lûchi," that jackal howls mill-stone. But she didn't answer. So he funnily, what does it say?"
called again, but still she didn't answer. Then "Oh," said the thag," all the jackals make he got angry, and threw the mill stone at her that noise about here."
head. The figure toppled over, and lo! it was Then they arrived at the Thag's house, and not Bôpô Lüchi but his own mother! Then he told her who he was, and that he intended the thag wept and beat his breast, for he to marry her himself, and she wept and cried. thought he had killed her. But when he found Then the shag went out and left her. in charge out Bêpô Lâchi had run away, he determined of his old, ever so old, mother. Now, Bôp to bring her back somehow. Lüchi had such beautiful hair that it reached
Now Bôpô Lâchỉ felt sure the thag would try down to her ankles, but the old mother hadn't and carry her off, so every night she begged a a single hair on the top of her bald old head. night's lodging in a friend's house, and so her "Daughter," she said, as she was putting the
own little bed in her own little house stood bridal dress on B&p8 Lüchi, “how did you get empty. But at the end of a month she such beautiful hair P"
slept in every friend's house for a night, and "Well," said Bôpô Lúchí, my mother made was ashamed to ask any of them again. So it grow. She pounded my head in the mortar" she determined to sleep at home whatever for husking rice, and at every stroke she gave happened, but she took a bill-hook to bed with with the pestle my hair grew longer and longer. her. In the middle of the night four men came It is a plan that never fails."
and lifted up her bed, and the thag was behind "Perhaps it would make my hair grow," her head. Bôpô Lâchf pretended to be fast said the old lady.
asleep till they came to a wild deserted spot, and "Perhaps it would," said Bôpô Lûchi. then she whipped out the bill-hook, and in a
So the old woman put her head in the mortar, twinkling cut off the heads of the two men at the and Bôpô Lüchi pounded it so hard that the foot of the bed. Then she turned round quickly, old woman died.
and cut off the head of one of the men at the Then Bôpô Lüchi dressed the dead body in her head of the bed, but the Thag who was the fourth scarlet bridal dress, seated it on the low bridal | ran away, and scrambled up a tree like a wild chair, and put the spinning wheel in front of it. cat before she could cut off his head. Then she drew the veil well over the dead "Come down," said Bôpô Luchi, "and fight woman's face, put on the dead woman's clothes, it out." and taking her bundle of things stepped out of
But he wouldn't come down. So Bðpð Lachi the house as quickly as possible."
gathered all the sticks she could find, piled them 11 See Note 8.
The Sansk. form is free pith a seat. The diminutive perhe "shes,lukhu Hind. a mortar, and Uue yo masala also means the pangs of childbirth, eto, but this is probably pestle. Hind.-R.C.T.
quite a different word connected with the Sansk. V 196 1. The word used for the bridal chair is 4to pirha, this
pidh, to be afflicted, suffer pain.-R.C.T.
1. The bridal scarlet, & universal custom among all with ita diminutive fat M is a low seat or stool with a Panjab tribes and classes. Every bride, however poor, back like a chair used by women. The word is universal in wears a dress of scarlet and gold for six months, and if many forms in Hindi and Panj. as pidha, pido and pishiya. rich for two years.-R.O.T.
