Indian Fairy Tales

The Bonga girl recognised them at once, but they did not know who she was. She brought them water on their arrival, and afterwards set cooked rice before them. Then sitting down...

The princess rode all round the garden, and looked at all the Kings and Rajas and princes, and then she hung the gold necklace round the neck of the boy, the grain merchant's se...

In the morning the old woman came to the Raja's son. "Now it is morning," she said, "and you must go; for if the king finds out all I have done for you, he will seize me."

Meanwhile the merchant's son had returned from hunting and was terribly distressed not to find his house and wife. There was the place only, just as he knew it before he had tri...

But when the villagers knew the creature to be an ass, they beat him till his bones broke; and, carrying off the lion's skin, went away. Then the hawker came; and seeing the ass...

"No, no," said Laili; "it belongs to a bad Raja, Chumman Basa, a very wicked man." But Majnun insisted on going in, and in spite of all Laili could say, he got off the horse to...

About a year after this Balna had a little son, and his uncles and aunts were so fond of the boy that it was as if he had seven fathers and seven mothers. None of the other Prin...

On and on the exiles walked, till they arrived at a certain village, where they determined to spend the night under one of the big trees of the place. The prince made preparatio...

Two days afterwards his father came back, and when he learnt his son's fate he grieved and mourned. But after a time, he took the bowl of milk, went to the ant-hill, and praised...

The newly married Prince went to his tigers, and told his tigers and hounds to kill and bring in a great number of gazelles and hog-deer and markhor. Instantly they killed and b...

The rat raja entered first to condole with his protector on his misfortune, and undertook to supply his protector with provisions. "Whatever sweetmeats or bread are prepared in...

The idea that they had conquered ten men and plundered all their property, now took possession of the robbers' minds. They seated themselves like three monarchs before the men t...

E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team and revised by Sankar Viswanathan, Fritz Ohrenschall, Sania Ali Mirza, and the O...

On their return, their mother, who had kept watch for them all night long with her little bright eye, said, "Well, children, what have you brought home for me?" Then Sun (who wa...

With the fairy tale strictly so called--_i.e._, the serious folk-tale of romantic adventure--I am more doubtful. It is mainly a modern product in India as in Europe, so far as l...

_Remarks._--Prof. Krohn comes to the conclusion that the majority of the oral forms of the tale come from literary versions (p. 47), whereas the _Reynard_ form has only had infl...

The negro variant has also suggested to Mr. Batten an explanation of the whole story which is extremely plausible, though it introduces a method of folk-lore exegesis which has...