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AUGUST, 1887.]
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
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all, from the highest to the lowest, the Accordingly such a document was forged Ministers of the empire thought it very unfair with the signature of the old king attached to on them not to know anything about him. it, and inserted among the records; the time They accordingly planned among themselves to for the festival becoming due being stated to go to the East Street in disguise and watch his be about a month hence. The young king carriage every evening.
knew nothing about these plans, but he did After a while one of them thus found out | know that no such festival was in vogue in Krishna Singh's house, as it happened, on Pashpapura, because he had previously carefully the day that the princess took an oil bath in the studied all the records. So when the ministers third storey. Her hair was so long that it suddenly spoke to him about the Swinging Feast touched the surface of the second storey, and and asked him to issue the necessary orders for Sellam had to anoint her locks one by one. This it, he thought within himself that it must be Minister observed this also, and as it is the some trick played upon him. “Might it.be usual opinion that beauty and length of the that some of these Ministers have, after great hair go together, he set down the woman bath- difficulty, found out my residence and there ing inside to be a paragon of beauty, as indeed! have caught sight of the princess P" thought she was. “Who else should that beauty behe: "Might it be that these people mistaking but the lady of our revered young king ?” her for my wife have invented this feast merely thought he, “We should purify ourselves by a in order to get a public view of her P Never sight of her holy presence!" With these mind! Let me satisfy them and thereby estabthoughts in his head he returned and informed lish my claim as husband to Chandramukhi!" his fellow-ministers of the place of their young With these thoughts in his mind, and begging king's residence. He also pointed out to them to be excused for the oversight, ho at once that eyesight was useless to them so long as issued the necessary orders, and everything the Queen-the lady of their young king- was arranged. Meanwhile King Krishņa Singh remained unseen by them, explaining to them
followed his igual life till the very day fixed for what he had observed.
the festival. Then all the ministers went to the old king It was now nearly a year since the princess and excited his curiosity till he, too, left Dharapura; and all the while she had been thought that he had been most foolish in not living as a private person without seeing any having made himself better acquainted with one except Sellam and the Takkuttakki, "Alas! the young king. He now wished to manage What a cruel woman I am !" thought she; “I to know more of him without injuring his am the only child of my parents, and have left feelings, as he had found him very stubborn them to their fate, flying away hither. There on one or two occasions when he had questioned I lived in all honour: here I am but an ordihim about his country and parentage. So the nary woman! I might have become the queen Ministers proposed that they should forge 8 of an empire some day if I had remained with document to the effect that it was the custom my father: now I am ashamed to explain who to perform a certain festival called the Swing- I am! It is nearly a year since I grew up, and ing Feast once a year in the great temple of hundreds of princes would have been courting Kaļi at Pushpapura, insert this document in me by this time were I in Dhârâpura; but now the records, and explain to the young king I have not even a single prince to seek my hand. that it had not been held for the past few Sellam wants me to marry the Takkuttükki. years owing to certain causes, but that, as Alas, poor man! How could I marry him when they had now entered on a new epoch, it he does not even know that two and two make ought to be held as before. The document four! I do wish my father would come in search was to say that during this festival the rule of me !" was that every man, high and low, from king! It was about noon when she fell into this tu beggar, must oome and sit along with his reverie and the scorching midday sun together wife on a swing to be set up in the great grove with the uneasiness of her mind produced a opposite the temple of Kaļi, and there be sort of head-ache which made her drowsy, swang to and fro.
when she was suddenly aroused by Sellam with
