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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAROH, 1926
103. A Fatal Compact.
(Recorded by Miss Ida Casabon of Aligarh.) One daya Thakur boy was herding his buffaloes, and near him a sweeper lad was grazing his pigs. She Thakur for a joke said "If I jump over one of your pigs, you must give me your sister to wife. If you jump over my buffalo, I will give you my sister.” They agreed, and the Thakur tried to jump over the pig, but the pig always ran out of his way, and he failed. Then the sweeper lad easily jumped over the back of the buffalo, and when he had done the feat, he said:"Now marry me to your sister."
The Thakur did not know how to escape carrying out his promise : so he said :-" Go across the river: turn yourself into a marigold and you shall have my sister." The sweeper went across the stream and became a marigold at once.
By and by the Thakur's sister came with his breakfast, and he said to her :-“I won't eat my breakfast till you go across the river and pick that marigold." She objected, but when he would not eat, she went into the water. When the water reached her knees, she was afraid and called out :-"The water is up to my knees." But he told her to go on. When it reached her waist, she cried out again ; but he spoke as before. Then it came to her shoulders and then to her neck; but her brother would not let her come back. At last she sank and was drowned.
Then he went home, and his mother said :-"Where is your sister? Why did she not come home with you?" He answered :-"She was in a hurry and started before me." But the parrot, who was in a cage close by, suspected him and said :-" Open my cage and I will go and look for her." So they opened his cage and he went to the river bank and called out :-" Hiriya, Hiriya, where are you?” She called out from under the water. "Go and tell my mother that I was drowned, because my brother rashly promised to marry me to the sweeper." The parrot went and told her mother, who turned her son out of doors.
104. The Pandit and the Princess.
(Told by Sivarâm, teacher, Madhoganj, Hardoi District.) There was once a Raja, who had a lovely daughter ; and as she grew up, the Pandit fell in love with her and began to plan how he could get her into his power. One day he sat down near the Raja in his court, and the Raja said :-" Panditji, my daughter is now coming of age. Search and find a suitable match for her." The Pandit asked to see her horoscope, and when he read it, he said "I have terrible nuws to tell you. When the princess is seventeen, a great trouble will coine upon you, and you will be expelled from your kingdom." The Raja was overcome with fear and asked the Pandit to devise some means for his protection,
Next day the Pandit came to the Raja and said "I have considered the matter. You must get rid of the princess before the fatal day arrives. It is not well for you to kill her with your own hand. So you should shut her up in a box and let her float down the river, and the animals of the river will devour her." Then the Pandit called his disciples and said "I am going to recite the great witchcraft spell (Dankini Mantra). I shall throw the objects used in the sacrifice into the river. So you should watch on the bank, and if you see anything foating down, pick it up and bring it to me, as it is of the greatest efficacy."
They put the princess in the box and let her float down the river. Just then a Raja, who had a most vicious monkey, came to the bank of the river where he intended to release the animal; and when he saw the box floating down, he had it taken out and found the princess. When he heard her story, he mounted her on one of his horses and rode away with her ; but first he shut up the monkey in the box,
