Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs (best books to read for students TXT) 📕

The Brahmin mourns his son’s death, but next morning as usual brings the libation of milk (in the hope of getting the gold as before). The serpent appears after a long delay at the mouth of its lair, and declares their friendship at an end, as it could not forget the blow of the Brahmin’s son, nor the Brahmin his son’s death from the bite of the snake.

Pants. III v (Benf. 244⁠–⁠7).

Phaedrine

—A good man had become friendly with the snake, who came into his house and brought luck with it, so that the man became rich through it.⁠—One day he struck the serpent, which disappeared, and with it the man’s riches. The good man tries to make it up, but the serpent declares their friendship at an end, as it could not forget the blow.⁠—

Phaed. Dressl. VII 28 (Rom. II xi.)

Babrian

A serpent stung a farmer’s son to death. The father pursued the serpent with an axe, and struck off part of its tail. Afterwards fearing its vengeance he brought food and honey to its lair, and begged reconciliation. The serpent, however, declares friendship impossible, as it could not forget the blow⁠—nor the farmer his son’s death from the bite of the snake.

Aesop, Halm 96b (Babrius-Gitlb. 160).

In the Indian fable every step of the action is thoroughly justified, whereas the Latin form does not explain why the snake was friendly in the first instance, or why the good man was enraged afterwards; and the Greek form starts abruptly, without explaining why the serpent had killed the farmer’s son. Make a composite of the Phaedrine and Babrian forms, and you get the Indian one, which is thus shown to be the original of both.

XVI The Son of Seven Queens

Source.⁠—Steel-Temple, Wideawake Stories, pp. 98⁠–⁠110, originally published in Indian Antiquary X 147 seq.

Parallels.⁠—A long variant follows in Indian Antiquary, l. c. M. Cosquin refers to several Oriental variants, l. c. p. XXX n. For the direction taboo, see Note on Princess Labam, supra, No. II. The “letter to kill bearer” and “letter substituted” are frequent in both European (see my List s. V) and Indian Folktales (Temple, Analysis, II iv b, 6, p. 410). The idea of a son of seven mothers could only arise in a polygamous country. It occurs in “Punchkin,” supra, No. IV; Day, Folktales of Bengal, 117 seq.; Indian Antiquary I 170 (Temple, l. c., 398).

Remarks.⁠—M. Cosquin (Contes de Lorraine, p. XXX) points out how, in a Sicilian story, Gonzenbach (Sizil. Mähr. No. 80), the seven co-queens are transformed into seven stepdaughters of the envious witch who causes their eyes to be taken out. It is thus probable, though M. Cosquin does not point this out, that the “envious stepmother” of folktales (see my List, s. V) was originally an envious co-wife. But there can be little doubt of what M. Cosquin does point out⁠—viz., that the Sicilian story is derived from the Indian one.

XVII A Lesson for Kings

Source.⁠—“Rājovāda Jātaka,” Fausböll, No. 151, tr. Rhys-Davids, pp. XXII⁠–⁠VI.

Remarks.⁠—This is one of the earliest of moral allegories in existence. The moralising tone of the Jatakas must be conspicuous to all reading them. Why, they can moralise even the Tar Baby (see infra, Note on “Demon with the Matted Hair,” No. XXV).

XVIII Pride Goeth Before a Fall

Source.⁠—Kingscote, Tales of the Sun. I have changed the Indian mercantile numerals into those of English “back-slang,” which make a very good parallel.

XIX Raja Rasalu

Source.⁠—Steel-Temple, Wideawake Stories, pp. 247⁠–⁠80, omitting “How Raja Rasalu was Born,” “How Raja Rasalu’s Friends Forsook Him,” “How Raja Rasalu Killed the Giants,” and “How Raja Rasalu became a Jogi.” A further version in Temple, Legends of Panjab, vol. I. Chaupur, I should explain, is a game played by two players with eight men, each on a board in the shape of a cross, four men to each cross covered with squares. The moves of the men are decided by the throws of a long form of dice. The object of the game is to see which of the players can first move all his men into the black centre square of the cross (Temple, l. c., p. 344, and Legends of Panjab, I 243⁠–⁠5). It is sometimes said to be the origin of chess.

Parallels.⁠—Rev. C. Swynnerton, “Four Legends about Raja Rasalu,” in Folklore Journal, p. 158 seq., also in separate book much enlarged, The Adventures of Raja Rasalu, Calcutta, 1884. Curiously enough, the real interest of the story comes after the end of our part of it, for Kokilan, when she grows up, is married to Raja Rasalu, and behaves as sometimes youthful wives behave to elderly husbands. He gives her her lover’s heart to eat, à la Decameron, and she dashes herself over the rocks. For the parallels of this part of the legend see my edition of Painter’s Palace of Pleasure, tom. I Tale 39, or, better, the Programm of H. Patzig, Zur Geschichte der Herzmäre (Berlin, 1891). Gambling for life occurs in Celtic and other folktales; cf. my List of Incidents, s. V “Gambling for Magic Objects.”

Remarks.⁠—Raja Rasalu is possibly a historic personage, according to Capt. Temple, Calcutta Review, 1884, p. 397, flourishing in the eighth or ninth century. There is a place called Sirikap ka-kila in the neighbourhood of Sialkot, the traditional seat of Rasalu on the Indus, not far from Atlock.

Herr Patzig is strongly for the Eastern origin of the romance, and finds its earliest appearance in the West in the Anglo-Norman troubadour, Thomas’ Lai Guirun, where it becomes part of the Tristan cycle. There is, so far as I know, no proof of the earliest part of the Rasalu legend (our part) coming to Europe, except the existence of the gambling