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OCTOBER, 1887.)
FOLKLORE IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
295
Proposed the husband :-"Let us both shut neither would open an eye or speak. For whoour eyes and stretch ourselves as if in sleep ever did it first would get only two muffins ! each on a verandah on either side the kitchen. At the public expense of the village two Whoever opens an eye and speaks first green litters of bamboo and cocoanut leaves gets only two muffins; and the other gets were prepared on which to remove the unforthree."
tunate pair to the cremation-ground. "How So great was the desire of each to get the loving they must have been to have died to three muffins that they both abided by the gether like this !" said some of the greybeards agreement, and the woman, though her mouth of the village. watered for the muffins, resolved to go through In time the cremation-ground was reached, the ordeal. She placed the five cakes in a and the village watchmen had collected a score pan and covered it over with another pan. of dried cowdung-cakes and bandle of fireShe then carefully bolted the door inside, and wood from each house for the funeral pyre.' asking her husband to go into the east verandah, From these charitable contributions two pyres lay down in the west one. Sleep she had had been prepared, one for the man and one none, and with closed eyes kept guard over her for the woman. The pyres were then lighted, husband : for if he spoke first he would have and when the fire approached his leg, the man only two muffins and the other three would thought it time to give up the ordeal and to come to her share. Equally watchful was her be satisfied with only two muffins ! So while husband over her.
the villagers were still continuing the funeral Thus passed one whole day,-two-three ! rites, they suddenly heard a voice :The house was never opened! No beggar came | "I shall be satisfied with two muffins !" to receive the morning dole. The whole Immediately another voice replied from the village began to enquire after the missing woman's pyre: beggar. What had become of him? What had "I have gained the day; let me have the become of his wife P " See whether his house three !" is locked on the outside and whether he has The villagers were amazed and ran away. left us to go to some other village," spoke the One bold man alone stood face to face with the greyheads. So the village watch came and supposed dead husband and wife. He was a tried to push the door open, but it would not bold man, indeed, for when a dead man or a open! “Surely," said they, “it is locked on man supposed to have died comes to life village the inside! Some great calamity must have people consider him to be a ghost. However, happened. Perhaps thieves have entered the this bold villager questioned the beggars until house and after plandering their property he came to know their story. He then went murdered the inmates."
after the runaways and related to them the "But what property is a beggar likely to whole story of the five muffins to their great have p" thought the village assembly, and not amazement. liking to waste time in idle speculations, they | But what was to be done to the people sent two watchmen to climb the roof and open who had thus voluntarily faced death out of a the latch from the inside. Meanwhile the whole love for muffins. Persons who had ascended the village, men, women and children, stood before green litter and slept on the funeral pyre could the beggar's house to see what had taken place never come back to the village ! If they did inside. The watchmen jumped into the house the whole village would perish. So the elders and to their horror found the beggar and his built a small hat in a deserted meadow outwife stretched on opposite verandahs like two side the village and made the beggar and his corpses. They opened the door, and the whole wife live there. village rashed in. They, too, saw the beggar Ever after that memorable day our hero and and his wife lying so still that they thought his wife were called the muffin beggar and the them to be dead. And though the beggar pair muffin beggar's wife, and many old ladies and had heard everything that passed around them, I young children from the village used to bring
• The village oustom in South India when a death ooours in the village.
