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314
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1893.
Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
husband? Reversed bodice, cocoanat shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
babe ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
father-in-law ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
mother-in-law ? After repeating this song several times the princess would disappear. This continued for many days, but no one in the king's palace was aware of it, except an old woman, who lived in a hut close by, and used to hear this song nightly, wondering what it meant, or who the person was that sang it. One day, the old woman saw the prince passing her hat, and stopping him she asked him who it was that sat on the hindld in the night and sang.
The prince was surprised to hear that someone sat on the hindid and sang when all were asleep. "Who can it be?" he thought to himself. “Everyone in the house goes to sleep as early as possible."
Thus thinking, he told the old woman he could not believe such a thing. The old woman, however, swore that she heard some one singing every night, “but to make yourself sure," said she to the prince," don't go to sleep to-night, and keep yourself concealed near the hindia, and then you can find out for yourself whether what I tell you is the truth or a lie." The prince agreed to do so, and went away,
In the evening, after taking supper, all the people of the palace went to bed, but the prince kept awake and hid himself close by the hindlá. About midnight he saw the figure of a young woman come and enter the palace, though the doors were all closed. The woman entered the bed-room, and after giving suck to the child, she came out and sat on the hindlá and sang :
“Orphandi chot, thania karántli, háis kari gô manje bhar árd môgi ?
Orphandi chóll, thanid karántli, háis kan go manje bala xôgi? Orphandi choli, thania karántli, huis kan gô manje sasria côgi ? Orphandi chóli, thanid karánd, hdis kan gå mánj& sású eigi ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
husband ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
babe ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
father-in-law ? Reversed bodice, cocoanut shells in place of breasts, are you worthy of my
mother-in-law ?" The prince now believed that what the old woman told him was true. He waited till the princess had repeated the song three or four times, upon which he left his hiding-place and seized the princess by her hand ; and asked her who she was, and what her song meant. She then told him that she was his wife, who was drowned in a well by her step-sister, while she had been to her father's house. She next explained how it had all happened.
When the prince heard the whole story of the princess, his oft-recurring suspicions about some fraud being practised on him were now confirmed. He seized the princess by the hand and begged of her not to leave him, but to stay with him, which she did. He next got into a rage and went and cut the pretended wife into three pieces: two pieces of the trunk he hung up on two roads, and the head (the third piece) he buried with mouth open in a latrine, the meaning being that she should eat human excreta as a punishment.
