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APRIL, 1896.]
FOLKLORE IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCES; No. 5.
111
sweet love and his beloved blood relations are saved from destruction by the sacrifice of my frail self.""
The husband was extremely pleased with the advice of his wife, marked by the ring of sincerity, truth and true love, and communicated it to his brothers..
The brothers did as advised to the very letter; and the fairies, coming to know of the grievances of the princes which made them discontented; promised to remedy them, and also promised to give the horses, distinguished from ordinary animals by neighing in the middle of the night, on the festival day which was approaching.
Though the fairies promised to give the horses, they wondered as to which amongst them could have revealed the secret about these mysterious animals, which they thought they only knew; and suspicion with justice fell on the youngest fairy, whose kindliness of heart the sisters were aware of, as distinguished: from their own relentless ones. This suspicion the six sisters locked in their breasts..
In due time the festival of the fairies came, and on the festival day the seven sisters took luxurious baths, put on the finest garments of rain-bow colours, and, providing themselves with the materials of worship, reached the steps of a temple not far from their abode, where the youngest fairy was asked to hold the bridles of the wonderful animals which were at the time standing ready in their trappings. The six elder sisters went inside and for some time remained in the place of worship; but as they came out they ate up their youngest sister. The princes at this juncture were ready for any imaginable emergency, warned as they had been of the festival beforehand. They, mounted the animals with a heroic spirit, and instantly were the seven brothers divided from, the weird land of the fairies by an interval of seven seas.
Thus the seven heroes providentially escaped; through the instrumentality of the steeds that had the power of saving those who were upon them at any cost, from the cannibal fairies and arrived in a certain kingdom..
The king, on hearing from the courtiers of the arrival in his country of miraculous horses in which he had no belief, sent for the owners of them, and in the first instance enquired whothey were, and, on receiving a reply that, they were common itinerant travellers, questioned them no further as to their horses,
But the king's three daughters of great loveliness and refined accomplishments, with their true feminine discernment, perceived in the young men no ordinary individuals of plebeian blood, but either princes or scions of a royal race travelling incognito in search of adventures, and believed at the same time that their horses were no ordinary animals. And; therefore, from the time the princes set foot in their court, the princesses were enamoured of them, and, after the lapse of some time, obtained their parents' consent to wed those three of the brothers, whom they liked most amongst the seven for qualities of head and heart.
But the princes greatly objected to marry, for by the alliance they averred that three of them would lead a conjugal life, and the rest that of celibates; and this state of things, they said, would not meet with the approbation of the gods, not to speak of man.
On hearing this the king replied :
"My sons, I am pleased with what you say so sensibly, and propose a remedy for the matter. The remedy is that a neighbouring king has four daughters, accomplished and of unrivalled beauty, whose hands, with the consent of their father, I shall ask and obtain for four of you, and solemnize the marriage simultaneously with the marriage of three of your brothers with my own three daughters."
