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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
"I haven't time to wait," said the stranger, "it must be here or nowhere."
Just then an old woman came hurrying by: "Here's an audience," cried the wrestlers, and called out-"Oh mother, stop and see fair play."
"I can't, my sons, for my daughter threatens to steal my camels. I must be off, and not stop here, but if you like you can jump on to the palm of my hand, and wrestle as I go along." So the two wrestlers jumped, one on to each palm, and fell to without delay.
Now when the old woman's daughter saw her coming along with the two wrestlers on her hand, she thought, "Here comes my mother with the soldiers she spoke of." So the girl packed up the 160 camels in her blanket and set off at a run. By and bye one of the camels got its head out, and began groaning and bubble-ubble-ubble-ing. So the girl tore down a few trees, and stuffed them into the bundle too. But when the farmer to whom the trees belonged saw this, he ran up and called out that she was a thief.
No. 1.-FOLK-TALE.1
King 'Ali Mardán Khán' and the Snake Woman.
Once upon a time King 'Ali Mardân Khân went out hunting, and as he hunted in the forest above the Dal Lake he saw before him a maiden beautiful as a flower, who was weeping bitterly. So he bade his followers remain behind, and going up to the beautiful damsel, he asked her who she was, and how she came into that wild forest alone.
FOLKLORE FROM KASHMIR.
COLLECTED BY MRS. F. A. STEEL.
WITH NOTES BY LIEUT. R. C. TEMPLE, B.S.C., F.R.G.S., M.R.A.S., &c.
This story has a non-Aryan ring about it, and may refer to the mythology of pre-Aryan times in Banda: perhaps to the somewhat mythical Gond occupation of that district.-R. C. T.
Told by Pandit Nina Beo at Khrá, near Srinagar.
-F. A. S.
[AUGUST, 1882.
"A thief indeed!" cried the girl, and with that she bundled the farmer, fields, crops, oxen, farm and all, into the blanket.
By and bye she came to a town, but when she asked a pastry cook to give her some food, he refused, so she caught up the town bodily, and thrust it into the blanket; and so on, with everything she met.
The celebrated 'Ali Mardân Khôn of Shah Jahan's reign. He was for a time Governor of Kashmir (not king as the tale says) about A.D. 1650, and was one of the most magnificent and best remembered the country ever had.-R. C. T.
The word used is Lamis, said in Kashmir to be a snake 200 years old, who has the power to turn into a woman at will. In Panjabi lammd is any long snake or serpent (lambd long). The before-mentioned belief (Panjab Folklore) in the power of jogis to conquer snakes
At last she saw a big water-melon in a field. Being very hungry she sat down, and put her bundle beside her, and began to eat it. When she had finished she felt sleepy; but the camels in the blanket made such a noise with their bubbleubble-ubble that she just packed everything into the lower half of the empty water-melon rind and popped on the other like a lid. Then she went to sleep in her blanket. While she slept a big flood came and carried off the water-melon, which floated down stream for ever so far, till it struck on a mud bank, when the top fell off, and out hopped the camels, the trees, the farmer, the farm, the oxen, the town and all the other things, till there was quite a new world in the middle of the river.*
"O great king," she answered, "I am the Emperor of China's handmaiden, and as I was wandering about in the pleasure garden of the palace I lost my way. And now I must die, for I am hungry and weary."
Then the king said gallantly, "So fair a maiden must not die while 'Ali Mardân Khân can deliver her."
And calling to his servants he bade them convey the damsel to his palace in the Shâlimâr
crops up in this tale. Similar legends about long-lived snakes abound in the neighbouring Kingrå Valley. 100 years' snakes can fly and are said to live in the sandal tree on the odour of the wood: they can also in Kashmir assume the shape of any animal. Only the 200 years' snake, yah wwd, can turn into a woman, while the 1000 years' snake can fly to the moon where he regales himself on amrit, nectar. In the Kingrå district Bhirts is a malignant sprite who can assume any shape, man, animal snake, etc. Bhirti has a special dislike to children and is held up to them as a bugbear. Mischiefs of all kinds, fires, &c., are put down to her; as also are cattle and agrarian thefts, a notion taken useful advantage of by the local thief. Like the Lamid she resumes her shape at night.-R. C. T.
The celebrated lake at Srinagar.-R. C. T.
