________________
JUNE, 1885.)
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
153
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
BY S. M. NATESA SASTRI PANDIT.
XI.-The Good HUSBAND AND THE BAD WIFE. | for a meal. This is his tribute (dakahina) to TN a remote village there lived a Brahman
the goddess; to-day you are the victim." 1 whose good nature and charitable disposi
Tbe guest was much alarmed. “What! break
the head of a guest! I at any rate shall not be tion were proverbial. Equally proverbial also were the ill-nature and uncharitable disposition
deceived to-day," thought he, and prepared to
run away. of the Brahmani-his wife. But as Paramesvara
The Brihman's wife appeared to sympathise (God) had joined them in matrimony, they had
with his sad plight, and said :to live together as husband and wife, though
"Really, I do pity you. But there is one their temperaments were so incompatible.
thing you can do now to save yourself. If Every day the Brahman had a taste of his wife's ill-temper, and if any other Brahman was
you go out by the front door and walk in the invited to dinner by him, his wife, somehow or
street my husband may follow you, so you had
better go out by the back door." other, would manage to drive him away.
To this plan the guest most thankfully One fine summer morning a rather stupid
agreed, and hastily ran off by the back door. Brahman friend of his came to visit our hero
Almost immediately our hero returned from and was at once invited to dinner. He told
his bath, but before he could arrive his wife his wife to have dinner ready earlier than
had cleaned up the place she had prepared for usual, and went off to the river to bathe. His
the pestle worship; and when the Brahman, not friend not feeling very well that day wanted
finding his friend in the house inquired of her a hot bath at the house, and so did not fol
as to what had become of him, she said in low him to the river, but remained sitting in
seeming anger :the outer verandah of the house. If any other
"The greedy brate! he wanted me to give guest had come the wife would have accused him
him this pestle-this very pestle which I of greediness to his face and sent him away,
brought forty years ago as a dowry from my but this visitor seemed to be a special friend of
mother's house, and when I refused he ran her lord, so she did not like to say anything;
away by the back-yard in haste." but she devised a plan to make him go away
But her kind-hearted lord observed that he of his own accord.
would rather lose the pestle than his guest, She proceeded to smear the ground before even though it was a part of his wife's dowry her husband's friend with cowdung, and placed
owdung, and placed and more than forty years old. So he ran off in the midst of it a long pestle supporting
with the pestle in his hand after his friend one end of it against the wall. She next
crying out, “Oh Brahman! Oh Brahman! approached the pestle most solemnly and per.
Stop please, and take the pestle." . formed worship (pájá) to it. The guest did not
But the story told by the old woman now in the least understand what she was doing, and seemed most true to the guest when he saw her respectfully asked her what it all meant. husband running after him, and so he said,
“This is what is called pestle worship," she "You and your pestle may go where you replied. "I do it as a daily duty, and this pestle please. Never more will you catch me in your is meant to break the head of some human being house," and ran away. in honour of a goddess, whose feet are most XII.-THE GOOD WIFE AND THE BAD HUSBAND.' devoutly worshipped by my husband. Every day In a remote village there lived a man and his as soon as he returns from his bath in the river wife, who was & stupid little woman and he takes this pestle, which I am ordered to keep believed everything that was told her. Whenready for him before his return, and with it ever people wanted anything from her they breaks the head of any human being whom he used to come and flatter her, but this had to be has managed to get hold of by inviting him done in the absence of her husband, because he
(Compare tho Sinhalese folktale given at p. 62, Vol. I. of the Orientalist.--Ed.)
