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194
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1899.
So saying the old man went to a bush, and, coming out as a adhiséia, with hood expanding, bit a "green" tree of twelve branches, blossoming with flowers and fruits, when, lo and behold the tree burned itself up in an instant, the stump only remaining. Seeing this the doctor entered the forest hard by and bringing a leaf in his hand, extracted juice from it and poured it on the remains of the burnt tree, and immediately the tree came to life with its branches, flowers, fruits and all, flourishing as before.
Whereupon the serpent advised the man saying: "Go by the way you came. Do not care the prince. He has disturbed the austerities of an anchorite, who in consequence has cursed him. The anchorite's curse should not be made of no-effect."
Hearing which the doctor returned home only to receive his mother's curse for not carrying out her wish,
Meanwhile, the evil hour drew nigh. An old purchit of the king, full of years, who had been left at home, desired to see the prince once again and started for the purpose, and while going he saw a fresh lime lying on the path. Going along it he reached the palace and greeted the prince reverentially from behind the fires. The prince returned the greeting, and, seeing the lime in the purohit's hand, he asked for it. Taking it he smelt it, when at once it became a suake, sticking to his nose with a long tail, and sucking the prince's life's blood. Thus was the anchorite's curse fulfilled, and nothing could avert it. And this is in accordance with the decrees of fate.
No. 13. The Clever Wife.
THERE was once a miserly Kômat! who used to give a ser of jowári every day for making three cakes. Of these he would eat two and a half and leave the rest to his wife, and half a cake is certainly not sufficient to keep any one's body and soul together, so it is not strange that the Kômati's wives, whom he married one after another, left him on the ground of insufficient food.
At last the Kômati got a wife who had a will of her own, and was a fit person to control him, though like the others she used to bake three cakes and place them before her husband. She stood her share of half a cake for three days, but on the fourth day she reserved a cake and a half for herself, and placed the rest before her husband.
"Where's the rest ?" said the husband; "fetch it."
"Why?"
"I want it."
She would not bring it, and he refused to eat anything. So she ate all the cakes. The next day also she baked three cakes and entreated her husband to eat his share.
"How many cakes ?" said he.
"One and a half."
"Say two and a half."
But she would not, and again ate them all. This went on for three or four days, and the consequence was that the husband became unwell, nearly died, but still remained obstinate,
Then the wife called some of her people and said:-"My husband is dead. Prepare a bier." They came and prepared the bier, and when they were about to bathe the corpse she went up to it and said: "Consent now."
"Say two and a half."
The first serpent upon whose head the world is said to rest. Earthquakes are caused by the shaking of its head. [A most interesting instance of the form in which the old iterary legends abc at Dhanvantara, the leech, and the humanised Niga serpents, have survived among the people, ED.]
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The curse stands to this day-medieines showing their effect only in a few cases of snake-bite and failing As a rule.
