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APRIL, 1897.]
FOLKLORE IN THE CENTRAL PROVINCES; No. 7.
105
As in the case of the carpenter's son, the woman with the jingling ornaments came near the kó! wal's son, and, on finding him awake, quick as thought went back a hundred yards. But when there came into his mind kindly thoughts, the captivating seducer', divining them, retraced her steps, and coming up to the kit wal's son sat on his knee, and began talking pleasantly. Hardly had the watcher begun to feel sleepy, when she galped him down, and also his steed, saddle and bridle, for she was an Ogress.
It was now the turn of the minister's son to watch. On commencing his watch, he noticed the absence of both his predecessors and reproached his faithless companions to himself for having deserted the prince, and at the same uttered a threat that he would get both the culprits' relatives hanged for this breach of faith. But then the same beautifu woman approached, and, on finding the minister's son awake, went back a hundred yards in the twinkling of an eye. When, however, the minister's son began to be sorry for being the cause of driving away a woman at such a time of night in a wild country, the fair creatore, retracing her steps, came to him, and gracefully sitting down apon his knee began to speak the sweet language of love. But the moment the watcher felt sleepy, he was eaten up, his steed sharing the same fate, together with the saddle and bridle.
The watch by the king's son followed that of the minister's son. On finding himself alone and deserted as it seemed by his three companions, ho exclaimed:
"I do not know what value my friends have put upon their lives, which are at the best only precarious; bat by deserting me, in spite of their profession of love, they have surely held their lives dear."
Hardly was this exclamation uttered when the king's son espied the beautiful young woman coming towards him, who, as before, in the twinkling of an eye retreated a hundred yards on seeing him awake. "Men grow by years, but princes grow by days," runs the proverb; so the prince at once suspected foul play. For he reasoned :-how could a woman cover a hundred yards in the twinkling of an eye, unless she be some Bild or evil spirit? With this in his mind, he at once climbed a tree, troubled by his loneliness. The ogress knew that she was discovered, but, taking advantage of the prince's solitary position, approached the tree and began to shake it, having first whetted her appetite on the steed tethered close by to a stake. But the prince, firmly planted on one of the uppermost branches, would not come down ; while this ogress sat at the base of the tree, expecting the climber every moment to come down, or fall a prey to her out of sheer fright.
Now it so happened that at this time a king arrived in that desert country in the course of bis travels with a large retinue of followers, some of whom were despatched to various parts in search of water. Some of these, coming to the tree where the prince was, asked him to come down.
"Oh no, I will not come down, for I am sure to be eaten by the woman whom you see sitting below," was the reply that descended in clear tones from one of the uppermost branches of the tree.
On this the followers turned to the woman for an explanation. She had replied that she was waiting for her insane husband to come down, and then there came from the top of the tree the question :- what had become of the climber's three companions - the carpenter's son, the kół wal's son, and the minister's son, besides their steeds and his own steed? She replied reasonably enough that they must have gone to slake their thirst, and thus the followers of the king believed in the insanity of the prince. Pleased with the beauty of the woman, they asked her whether she would go with them for safety to their king, as she would be helpless in such a wild country with an insane husband. After slightly demurring, not to Bronse suspicion, she consented, and so they took her in a palanquin to their master."
· A form of oriental judgment much in vogue in olden times in the native courte.
