Chapter 23
This Indian story looks like a relic of stock and stone worship (see Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, vol. II. chapters XIV. and XV.). Compare the man's beating his fate-stone with the treatment the Ostyak gives his puppet. If it is good to him he clothes and feeds it with broth; "if it brings him no sport he will try the effect of a good thrashing on it, after which he will clothe and feed it again" (_ib._ p. 170). Other examples are given at the same page. These spirits and gods, for whose dwelling-place stocks and stones and other objects had been supplied, were not supposed always to inhabit these abodes; but they did so at pleasure. Compare Elijah's address to the priests of Baal, "Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth" (1 Kings xviii. 27), with Caterina's seven-veiled fate, and the prostrate fate-stone in our story whose spirit-owner was evidently absent on some expedition. These fates may be compared with the patron or guardian spirits of whom Mr. Tylor speaks at pp. 199-203 of the same volume. He says (p. 202), "The Egyptian astrologer warned Antonius to keep far from the young Octavius, 'for thy demon,' said he, 'is in fear of his.'" If one man's demon or genius were at enmity with that of another man, it would probably be friendly to that of a third man, and would therefore be acquainted with its secrets and with its motives of behaviour to the man it guarded. Hence the advice given by her mistress to Caterina to inquire of her own fate from her mistress's fate, and the questions to be put to their fates when found given to the men in the Indian and Servian stories. These questions remind one of those entrusted to the youths in European tales as they journey to the dragon or devil to whom they are sent for destruction. Like the fates in the Indian and Servian stories, these dragons and devils live at the end of a long and difficult journey. Caterina has to climb a mountain to visit her mistress's fate.
2. Gubernatis (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 22), speaking of the three _Ribhavas_, says, "During the twelve days (the twelve hours of the night or the twelve months in the year) in which they are the guests of Agohyas," &c. So possibly the twelve years in this and other stories in this collection may be the twelve hours of the night. In an unpublished story told by Dunkní, "Prince Húsainsá's journey," the prince journeys for twelve years. When he returns home he finds his parents as he had left them--fast asleep in bed. To them the twelve years had only been as one night.
XIII.--THE UPRIGHT KING.
1. The Boar is an avatár of Vish[n.]u.
2. A [d.]om (the d is lingual) is a Hindú of a very low caste.
3. Possibly this king is the same as the king Harichand in the last story but one in the collection, p. 224, and he may also be the Hariçchandra of the following letter from Mr. C. H. Tawney:--
"I have been looking up the story of 'Hariçchandra.' It is to be found in Muir, vol. I. He gives a summary of it from the _Marka[n.][d.]eya Purá[n.]a_. It is also found in the 'Chanda Kauçikam,' and in Mutu Coomara Swamy's 'Martyr of Truth.' The following is Muir's summary summarized. Hariçchandra was a king who lived in the Tretá age, and was renowned for his virtue, and for the universal prosperity, moral and physical, which prevailed during his reign. One day he heard a sound of female lamentation which proceeded from the Sciences who were becoming mastered by the austere Sage, Viçvamitra, in a way they had never been before. He rushed to their assistance as a Kshatriya bound to succour the oppressed. By a haughty speech he provoked Viçvamitra, and in consequence of his wrath the Sciences instantly perished. (In the 'Chanda Kauçikam,' as far as I remember, we are told that the anger of Viçvamitra interfered with the success of his austerity.) The king says he had only done his duty as a king, which involves the bestowal of gifts on Bráhmans and the succour of the weak. Viçvamitra thereupon demands from the king as a gift the whole earth, everything but himself, his son, and his wife. The king gives it him. Then Viçvamitra demands his sacrificial fee; the king goes to Benares, followed by the relentless Sage, the ruler of Çiva, and is compelled to sell his wife. She is bought by a rich old Bráhman. The son cries and the Bráhman buys him too. But Hariçchandra has not enough, even now, to satisfy Viçvamitra, so he sells himself to a Chá[n.][d.]ála, who is really Dharma, the god of righteousness. The Chá[n.][d.]ála (man of the lowest caste), carries off the king, bound, beaten, and confused. The Chá[n.][d.]ála sends him to steal clothes in a cemetery. There he lives twelve months. His wife comes to the cemetery to perform the obsequies of her son, who had died from the bite of a serpent. The two determine to burn themselves with the corpse of their son. When Hariçchandra, after placing his son on the funeral pyre, is meditating on the Supreme Spirit, the lord Hari Náráya[n.]a Krish[n.]a, all the gods arrive headed by Dharma (righteousness) and accompanied by Viçvamitra. Dharma entreats the king to desist from his rash enterprise, and Indra announces to him that he, his wife, and his son have gained heaven by their good works. Ambrosia and flowers are rained by the god from the sky, and the king's son is restored to the bloom of youth. The king, adorned with celestial clothing and garments, and the queen, embrace their son. Hariçchandra, however, declares that he cannot go to heaven till he has received his master the Chá[n.][d.]ála's permission, and paid him a ransom. Dharma, the god of righteousness, then says that he had miraculously assumed the form of a Chá[n.][d.]ála. The king requests that his subjects may accompany him to heaven, at least for one day. This request is granted by Indra; and after Viçvamitra has inaugurated the king's son, Rohitaçva, as his successor, Hariçchandra, his friends and followers, all ascend to heaven."
XIV.--LOVING LAILÍ.
1. Majnún is a celebrated lover, whose love for Lailí or Lailá is the subject of many Eastern poems. In this story he does not play a brilliant part.
2. Lailí's knife is like the sun-hero's weapon (the sun's ray), which lengthens at its owner's pleasure (Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, vol. II. p. 147).
3. She cuts her little finger. See "the Bél Princess," p. 141, and paragraph 2 of the note to "Shekh Faríd." "The little finger, though the smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows everything." A Piedmontese mother says, "My little finger tells me everything" (Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 166). We have a somewhat similar saying in England. In a Russian story quoted by the same author in the same work (vol. II. p. 151), an old woman while baking a cake, cuts off her little finger and throws it into the fire. From the little finger in the fire is born a strong dwarf who afterwards does many wonderful things. In the tale of the five fingers ("Die Maehr von den fuenf Fingern," Haltrich's _Siebenbuergische Maerchen_, p. 325), where each finger decides what it will do, the little one says, "I will help with wise counsel." In consequence of this assistance, to this day, "when any one has a wise idea (Einfall), he says 'that his little finger told him that'" (p. 327). In Finnish mythology we again find the little finger. "The Para, also originated in the Swedish Bjaeren or Bare, a magical three-legged being, manufactured in various ways, and which, says Castrén, attained life and motion when its possessor, cutting the little finger of his left hand, let three drops of blood fall on it, at the same time pronouncing the proper spell." ("The Mythology of Finnland," _Fraser's Magazine_ for May 1857, p. 532.)
In Rink's _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, p. 441, there is an account of Kanak's visit to the man of the moon, where he meets a woman who, he is warned, will take out his entrails if she can only make him laugh. He follows the moon-man's advice, which is to rub his leg with the nail of his little finger when he can no longer keep from smiling, and so saves himself from the old hag. Rishya ['S]riñga (to return to the land of our fairy tales) threw a drop of water from the nail of his little finger on a Rakshas who, in the form of a tiger, was rushing to devour him. The demon instantly quitted the tiger's body, and asked the Rishi what he should do. He followed the holy man's instructions and obtained môksha (salvation)--see _Indian Antiquary_ for May 1873, p. 142, "The Legend of Rishya ['S]riñga," told by V. N. Narasimmiyengar of Bangalor.
XV.--HOW KING BURTAL BECAME A FAKÍR.
1. The Fakír strikes the dead antelope with his wand (_chábuk_), as in "Shekh Faríd," p. 98. In both cases Dunkní says the wand used was a long, slender piece of bamboo. I do not know whether the bamboo is a lightning-plant. Possibly it is, being a grass (some grasses are lightning-plants, see Fiske's _Myths and Mythmakers_, pp. 56, 61), and also because its long slender stems are lance-shaped. If it does belong to this class, naturally a blow from a bamboo (or lightning) wand would give life, for, says Fiske (_ib._ p. 60), "the association of the thunder-storm with the approach of summer has produced many myths in which the lightning is symbolized as the life-renewing wand of the victorious sun-god."
2. The king tries to hide the ball in his hair. The wonderful power and strength of hair appears in tales from all lands: Signor de Gubernatis suggests that, in the case of solar heroes, their hair is the sun's rays (_Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 117, vol. II. p. 154); and it seems to me possible that, just as the _colour_ of the solar hero's hair has been appropriated by Indian fairy-tale princes who are not solar, the _qualities_ of his hair may have been attributed to that of folk-lore heroes who are not solar, and may also have been the origin of some of the strange superstitions prevalent about human hair. This theory, if correct, would account for most of the strange things that I have hitherto met about hair. It must be remembered that the sun's rays are also his weapons; they turn to thunderbolts when the sun is hidden in the rain-clouds (Gubernatis, _ib._ vol. I. pp. 9, 17), and also to lightning (see _ib._ vol. II. p. 10, where the sun under the form of a bull is spoken of as the fire which sends forth lightning).
First there is Samson, whose name, according to Gesenius, means "solar," "like the sun." Of the hero Firud, it is told "that a single hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors" (Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 117). Conan was the weakest man of the Féinn, because they used to keep him cropped. "He had but the strength of a man; but if the hair should get leave to grow, there was the strength of a man in him for every hair that was in his head; but he was so cross that if the hair should grow he would kill them all" (Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. III. p. 396). At p. 91 of Schmidt's _Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_, is the story of a king, "Der Capitän Dreizehn," who is "the strongest of his time," and who has three long hairs, so long that they could be twisted twice round the hand on his breast. When these are cut off he becomes the weakest of men. When these grow again he regains his strength. The sun's rays have most power when they are longest, _i.e._ when the sun is in apogee.
Possibly from this old forgotten myth about the solar hero's hair came some superstition to which was due the Merovingian decree that only princes of the blood-royal should wear their hair long; cutting their long hair made them incapable of becoming kings. Their slaves were shaved. The barbarians ruled that only their free men should wear long hair, and that the slaves should be shaved. Professor Monier Williams, in the _Contemporary Review_ for January 1879, p. 265, says that Govind, the 10th Guru and founder of the Sikh nationality, ordered the Sikhs to wear their hair long to distinguish themselves from other nations.
In the Slavonic story, "Leben, Abenteuer und Schwaenke des kleinen Kerza," is a dwarf magician with a long white beard. With a hair from this beard Kerza binds the magician's wicked wife, who has taken the form of a wooden pillar the better to carry out her evil ends. From that moment it was impossible for her to take again her own shape or to use her former magic powers (Vogl's _Volksmaerchen_, p. 227). One of the tasks set by Yspaddaden Penkawr to Kilhwch before he will give him his daughter Olwen to wife, is to get him "a leash made from the beard of Dissull Varvawc, for that is the only one that can hold the two cubs. And the leash will be of no avail unless it be plucked from his beard while he is alive, and twitched out with wooden tweezers ... and the leash will be of no use should he be dead because it will be brittle,"--that is, when the sun is set (dead) his rays have no power (_Mabinogion_, vol. II. p. 288). The same idea lies at the bottom of the English superstition that "if a person's hair burn brightly when thrown into the fire, it is a sign of longevity; the brighter the flame, the longer the life. On the other hand, if it smoulder away, and refuse to burn, it is a sign of approaching death" (Henderson's _Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England_, p. 84).
The Malays have a story of a woman, called Utahigi, in whose head grew a single white hair endowed with magic power. When her husband pulled it out a great storm arose and Utahigi went up to heaven. She was a bird (or cloud) maiden, and this hair must have been the lightning drawn from the cloud. The Servian Atalanta, when nearly overtaken by her lover, takes a hair from the top of her head and throws it behind her. It becomes a mighty wood (clouds are the forests and mountains of the sky, Gubernatis, _Zoological Mythology_, vol. I. p. 11), Karadschitsch, _Volksmaerchen der Serben_, p. 25, in the story "von dem Maedchen das behender als das Pferd ist." In Schmidt's _Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_, p. 79, the king's daughter as she flies with her lover from the Lamnissa throws some of her own hairs behind her, and they become a great lake (thunderbolts and lightning bring rain). At p. 98 of the same work is the story "Der Riese vom Berge." When this giant wishes to enter his great high mountain, he takes a hair from his head and touches the mountain with it. The mountain at once splits in two (p. 101). The king's daughter in her encounter with the Efreet, "plucked a hair from her head and muttered with her lips, whereupon the hair became converted into a piercing sword with which she struck the lion [the Efreet], and he was cleft in twain by her blow; but his head became changed into a scorpion" (Lane's _Arabian Nights_, vol. I. p. 156). A Baba Yaga, in Ralston's _Russian Folk Tales_, p. 147, plucks one of her hairs, ties three knots in it, and blows, and thus petrifies her victims. She is a personification of the spirit of the storm, _ib._ p. 164. In _Old Deccan Days_, at p. 62, the old Rakshas says to Ramchundra, "You must not touch my hair;" "the least fragment of my hair thrown in the direction of the jungle would instantly set it in a blaze." Ramchundra steals two or three of the hairs, and when escaping from the Rakshas, flings them to the winds and fires the jungle. Chandra (p. 266 of the same book) avenges the death of her husband by tearing her hair, which burns and instantly sets fire to the land; all the people in it but herself and a few who had been kind to her and are therefore saved, were burnt in this great fire.
In these tales a single hair from the head of the Princess Labám (the lunar ray can pierce the cloud as well as a solar ray) cuts a thick tree-trunk in two, p. 163.
Hair has another property; it can tell things to its owners. See the three hairs the Queen gives Coachman Toms, saying, "They will always tell you the truth when you question them." (Stier's _Ungarische Volksmaerchen_, p. 176), and which, later in the story (p. 186) adjudge the king worthy of death. (See Grimm's story _Kinder und Hausmaerchen_, vol. II. p. 174, "The clear sun brings day.") Also "Das wunderbare Haar" (Karadschitsch _Volksmaerchen der Serben_, p. 180), which is blood-red, and in which when split open were found written a multitude of noteworthy events from the beginning of the world. (The sun's rays have existed since the early ages of the world.) The girl from whose head the hair is taken threads a needle with the sun's rays and embroiders a net made of the hair of heroes.
See, too, the Eskimo account of the removal of Disco Island in Rink's _Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo_, p. 464, where one old man vainly tries to keep back the island by means of a seal-skin thong which snaps, while two other old men haul it away triumphantly by the hair from the head of a little child, chanting their spells all the time. Their success was, perhaps, due to the spells, not to the hair. In the notes to Der Capitän Dreizehn in Schmidt's _Griechische Maerchen, Sagen und Volkslieder_, there are some instances of the strength given by hair to those on whom it grows.
2. The líchí is Nephelium Litchi.
3. King Burtal's eldest son's name _Sazádá_ is perhaps the boy's title Shahzádá (born of a king), prince. Dunkní says it is his name.
XVI.--SOME OF THE DOINGS OF SHEKH FARÍD.
1. Kheláparí means "playful fairy:" Gulábsá, "like a rose."
2. In another version told to me this year by Dunkní, when Gursan Rájá wakes and learns how long his wife has stood by him, he is horrified, and refuses the water, saying he does not want it. He tells her that as a reward for her patience and goodness, she shall know of herself everything that happens in other countries--floods, fires, and other troubles; that she shall be able to bring help; and should any one die from having his throat cut she shall be able to restore him to life, by smearing the wound with some blood taken from an incision in her little finger. Kheláparí's acquaintance with Shekh Faríd begins in this version as follows:--She was standing at the door of her house looking down the road, when she saw coming towards her Shekh Faríd, the cartman, and the bullock-cart laden with what once was sugar, but now, thanks to the fakír, is ashes. Through her gift Kheláparí knows all that has happened, though the miracle was not performed in her sight; and Shekh Faríd being a fakír, though his all-knowing talent does not equal hers, knows that she knows. The cartman is in despair when he discovers the ashes, and implores Shekh Faríd to help him. The fakír sends him to Kheláparí, saying he must appeal to her as her power of doing good excels his (the fakír's); that though he could turn sugar to ashes, he could not turn the ashes to sugar. Kheláparí at the cartman's prayer performs this miracle. Their next encounter is by a tank in the jungle by which the holy man is resting. She is hurrying along to put out the fire at her father's palace. The Shekh cannot understand how it is possible for any woman to know of herself what is happening twenty miles off, when he, a fakír, can only know what passes at a short distance, so he follows the Rání to test her truthfulness, and arrives in time to see her helping to put out the fire. The rest of the story is the same as the version printed in this collection.
3. This Shekh Faríd was a famous Súfí saint. He was a contemporary of Nának, and many of his sayings are embodied in the Granth. In Central India, there is a holy hill of his called Girur. The Gazetteer of the Central Provinces edited by C. Grant, 2nd edition, Nágpur, 1870, says that articles of merchandise belonging to two travelling traders who mocked the saint passed before him, on which he turned the whole stock-in-trade into stones as a punishment. They implored his pardon, and he created a fresh stock for them from dry leaves, on which they were so struck by his power that they attached themselves permanently to his service, and two graves on the hill are said to be theirs. In the _Pioneer_ for 5th August 1878, Pekin has a poem on a similar legend about the saint. Standing on his holy hill, one day Shekh Faríd saw a packman pass and he begged for alms. The packman mocked him. Then the saint asked what his sacks contained. "Stones," was the answer. The Shekh said, "Sooth--they are but worthless stones." Whereupon all the sacks burst, and the contents, at one time different kinds of spices, fell stones to the ground. The owner implored the saint's mercy. Shekh Faríd told him to fill his sacks with leaves from the trees, which was done, and then the leaves became gold mohurs. The packman turned saint too and left his bones on Girur. A similar miracle is told of the Irish Saint, Brigit. "Once upon a time Brigit beheld a man with salt on his back. 'What is that on thy back?' saith Brigit; 'Stones,' saith the man. 'They shall be stones then,' saith Brigit, and of the salt stones were made. The same man again cometh to (or past) Brigit. 'What is that on thy back?' saith Brigit. 'Salt,' saith the man. 'It shall be salt then,' saith Brigit. Salt was made again thereof through Brigit's word." (_Three Middle Irish Homilies_, p. 81.)
4. Fakírchand means the moon of fakírs. Mohandás, the servant of the Mohan (Krish[n.]a). Champákálí is a necklace made in imitation of the closed buds of the champa or champak flowers.
5. The demons, in Hindústání _dew_ (pronounced deo), god, are something like the Rakshases. They have wings, and have exceedingly long lips, one of which sticks up in the air, while the other hangs down. One of King Arthur's warriors, "Gwevyl, the son of Gwestad, on the day that he was sad, he would let one of his lips drop below his waist while he turned up the other like a cap upon his head" (_Mabinogion_, vol. II. p. 266, "Kilhwch and Olwen").
XVII.--THE MOUSE.
1. Unluckily, when Karím was with us, I neglected to write down the name of the grain that kills the mouse, and all the wonderful things he told us of the properties of this grain. His explanations were a kind of note given after he had finished the story.
2. The only parallel I can find to this story is one in Bleek's _Hottentot Fables and Tales_, p. 90, called "The unreasonable child to whom the dog gave its deserts; or a receipt for putting any one to sleep," in which the child indulges in the uncalled for generosity and unreasonable rage of the mouse.
XVIII.--A WONDERFUL STORY.
1. Ajít means unsubdued, invincible.
2. The wrestler's mode of announcing his arrival at Ajít's house is, probably, the solitary result of many efforts to induce Karím himself to knock at the nursery door before he marched into the nursery. I never heard of natives knocking at each other's house-doors.
3. With these wrestlers compare Grimm's "Der junge Riese," _Kinder und Hausmaerchen_, vol. II. p. 23, and "Eisenhans" in Haltrich's _Siebenbuergische Maerchen_, p. 77.
4. Ajít carries her house. Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: "Compare an Irish story about Fionn and a giant who was told that the hero turned the house when the wind blew open the door." [See, too, Campbell's _Tales of the Western Highlands_, vol. III. p. 184]
5. When Karím was here I forgot to ask him how big were Ajít's cakes, can, and mice. Mr. Campbell of Islay, who read this story in manuscript, wrote in the margin where the mice were mentioned: "The fleas in the island of Java are so big that they come out from under the bed and steal potatoes. They do many such things. Compare [with Ajít's can] a Gaelic story about a man who found the Fenians in an island, and was offered a drink in a can so large that he could not move it."