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MARCH, 1926 ]
FOLK-TALES FROM NORTHERN INDIA
53
When the box had floated some way down, the disciples of the Pandit saw it and brought it to him. He had arranged the inner room ; and there he took the box, intending to open it when he was alone. So he said to his disciples :-"I am going to do some more witchcraft; and when the witches come, they will make a great disturbance. But you should remain outside and go on blowing the conch shell, and do not pay any attention to whatever you may hear."
They promised to obey him and went on blowing the conch shell. When the Pandit opened the box, the monkey came out and jumped on his back and began to tear him to pieces. He shouted for help, but no one minded him ; and a long time after, when they opened the inner room, the monkey rushed out and they found the Pandit on the point of death. When they asked him what had occurred, all he could do was to scratch this verse on the wall with his nail and then he died :
Jo jaise karni karé ; so taisa phal pde ;
Raja bhoge sundari, Biprahin bandar khde. "Everyone reaps the fruit of his deeds; the Raja gets the damsel and the Pandit is devoured by the monkey."
105. The Banker's Wife. (Told by Lakshmun Prasád, Bijpauri, and recorded by Kundan Lal, Pithauli,
Agra District.) A certain banker had a very beautiful wife, who was seen one day by the king, as she stood on the upper storey of her house. The king became greatly enamoured of her, had her carried off by stealth, and married her. In grief at her departure, her husband and her son abandoned their home and became religious mendicants : but some little time afterwards the son obtained the post of city Kotwal, while his father sought some means of recovering his wife. One day, as the latter was passing the palace, his wife espied him and called to him; and on his approaching, she said. " Go ahd wait by the temple outside the town, and I will come to you." Now the woman was devoted to her husband ; and so, when the king came to sleep with her that night, she cut off his head and went with it to her husband. But unfortunately he had been bitten by & snake, while waiting for her, and was dead. Thereupon in great distress she ran away, and on the road she fell in with a Banjara, who kept her as his wife. Arriving with him at a city, she was forcibly seized by the Nayaks and made a prostitute. Now it chanced that this was the city in which her son was the Kotwal.
Her son happened to see her and fell in love with her beauty, but did not recognise her as his mother. But by degrees, as they became intimate, the truth dawned upon them both. Thereupon in shame she fled to the river-bank and mounted a funeral pyre, in the hope of ending her miserable life. But the river could not brook this, and rose and flooded the pyre, and she, balancing herself on a log, floated away on the flood-tide to a spot where some Gujars were grazing their cattle. They seized her and one of them took her to wife. He used to send her to the market to sell curd, and there the men of the market began to cut jokes at her expense; whereupon in anger and distress she threw down her vessel of curd and smashed it. The Gujar, hearing of this, was very angry and exclaimed: “This woman will be the ruin of my home at this rate." Then did she retort in the following words
“Nrip mari chali apné piya kun piya kal daso dukh mên parlho;
Bhagi chali, banjar lai, tab benchi dai ganika ghar ho ; Sut sang bhai jari be ko chali nadiya parwah bahi tiriho ;
Itné dukh pdi bhai gujari, teri chhachh kô sôch kaha kariho. i.e., "Having killed the king, I went to my lawful husband. But & snake bit him and I was in sore distress. So I fled, and a Banjar & caught me, and after that I was sold to &
