Story 198 - The Story of the Wooden Peacock

IN a certain country there are a Carpenter and a Hettirala, it is said. There are also the wives of the two persons; there are also the two sons of the two persons.

The Carpenter and the Hettirala spoke together:

“Let us send our two children to school.”

Having spoken thus, they sent the Carpenter’s son and the Hettirala’s son to school. At the time when the two had been going to school no long period, the Hettirala took and gave a cart and a bull to the Hettirala’s son. Well then, the Hettirala’s son goes to school in the cart; the Carpenter’s son goes on the ground. A day or two having gone by he does not go again.

Afterwards the Carpenter asked,

“Why, Ade ! dost thou not go to school ?”

Then said the youngster,

“The Hettirala’s son goes in the cart ; I cannot go on the ground.”

After that, the Carpenter also took and gave (anna dunna) a cart and a yoke of bulls to the Carpenter’s son. Now then, the Carpenter’s son also, tying [the bulls to] the cart, goes to school.

Then the Hettirala’s son, having sold the cart and bull, got a horse and horse carriage. The Hettirala’s son began to go in the horse carriage. Then the Carpenter’s son does not go to school.

Then the Carpenter asked,

“What dost thou not go to school for ?”

The Carpenter’s son said,

“The Hettirala’s son goes in the horse carriage; I cannot go in an ordinary (nikan) cart.”

Afterwards, the Carpenter having said,

“If the Hettirala’s son goes in the horse carriage, am I not a Carpenter? Having made a better one than that I will give you it,”

constructed a wooden Peacock (dan̆du mon̆dara) and gave it to the Carpenter’s son. Afterwards the Carpenter’s son, rowing on the wooden Peacock [through the air], goes to school.

When they were thus for not a long time, the Carpenter died; the Carpenter’s wife also died. Afterwards this Carpenter’s son thought to himself that he must seek for a marriage for himself. Having thought it he went rowing the wooden Peacock to a city.

There is a Princess of that city. The Princess alone was at the palace when the Carpenter’s son was going. Afterwards the Carpenter’s son asked at the hand of the Princess,

“Can you (puliuhanida) go with me to our country ?”

Then the Princess said,

“I will not go; if you be here I can [marry you].”

After that, the Carpenter’s son marrying^[1] the Princess, stays [there]. While he was there two Princes were born.

After that, the Carpenter’s son said to the Princess,

“Taking these two Princes also, let us go to our country.”

The Princess said “Ha.”

Well then, while the Princess and the Carpenter’s son, and the two Princes of these two, were going [through the air] on the back of that wooden Peacock, that younger Prince said,

“I am thirsty.”^[2]

The Carpenter’s son having split his [own] palm gave him blood. The Prince said,

“I cannot drink blood; I must drink water.”

Afterwards, having lowered the wooden Peacock to the ground, [the Carpenter’s son] went to seek water. [While he was absent] the younger Prince cut the cord of the wooden Peacock.

The Carpenter’s son having gone thus, [after] finding water came back and gave it to the Prince. Afterwards, after the Prince drank the water he tried to make the wooden Peacock row aloft; he could not, because [the young Prince] cut the wooden Peacock’s cord.

Afterwards, having left (damala) the wooden Peacock there, [the Carpenter’s son] came to the river with the Princess and the two Princes; having come [there] they told the boatman to put them across (ekan-karawanda).

Afterwards, the boatman firstly having placed the Carpenter’s son on the high ground on the other bank (egoda gode), and having come back to this bank, placing the Princess in the boat took her below along the river, and handed over the Princess to the King of the boatman’s city.

The Carpenter’s son having stayed on the high ground on the other bank, became a beggar, and went away.^[3] Those two Princes having been weeping and weeping on this bank, jumped into the river. The two Princes went upwards and upwards in the river—there is a crocodile-house (burrow)—along the crocodile-house they went upward [and came to the surface of the ground].

Having gone there, while they were there weeping and weeping a widow woman having come for water (watura pare) asked,

“What are you weeping and weeping there for ?”

at the hand of the two Princes.

Then the two Princes say,

“Ane ! Being without our mother and father we are weeping and weeping.”

Then the widow woman said,

“Come, if so, and go with me.”

Afterwards, having said “Ha,” the two Princes went with the widow woman. Having thus gone, the widow woman gave food to the two Princes.

While they were growing big and large the King said at the hand of that Princess,

“Now then, let us marry.”

Then the Princess said,

“In our country, when a Princess has either been sent away (divorced, aericcahamawat) or has made mistakes (padawari weccahamawat), she does not marry until the time when three years^[4] go by. When the three years have gone (gihama) let us marry.”

Afterwards the King, having placed a guard for the Princess, waited until the time when the three years go by.

These two Princes who jumped into the river one day went to be on guard.

The Princess asked at the hand of the Princes,

“Whence are you ?”

Then the Princes said,

“While we were young at a very distant city our mother and father were lost near the river. A widow woman having brought us away is now rearing us.”

Then the Princess said,

“It is your (umbale) mother indeed who is I; your father is now walking about, continuing to beg and eat. I will perform a meritorious deed (pinkomak) and bring him; you, also, join yourselves to the beggars’ party.”

Having said this, and given the two Princes silver and gold things, she sent them away.

That Princess at the hand of the King said,

“I must perform a meritorious deed, to give money to those with crippled arms, lame persons, and beggars.”

Afterwards the King by the notification tom-toms gave public notice to those with crippled arms, and lame persons, and beggars, to come [for the alms-giving]. Afterwards they came; that Carpenter’s son, the beggar, also came.

To the whole of them^[5] she gave money; to that Carpenter’s son she gave much,—silver and gold. Having given it, the Princess said,

“Having taken these and gone, not losing them, construct a city for us to stay in when we have come together again,”

she said. “Our two Princes also are near such and such a widow woman; [after] joining them, go.”

Afterwards that Carpenter’s son, joining the two Princes also, went and built a city. Afterwards this Princess—having placed a guard over whom, the King had stopped—having bounded off, unknown to the King^[6] went to the city which the Carpenter’s son and the two Princes built.

Well then, the Princess, and the Carpenter’s son, and the two Princes stayed at the city.

Finished.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Note:

In the Jataka story No. 193 (vol. ii, p. 82), a Prince who was travelling alone with his wife is described as cutting his right knee with his sword when she was overcome with thirst, in order to give her blood to drink.

In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 142, a Prince married a carpenter’s daughter, and afterwards became poor, and a drum-beater for conjurers and dancers, a fate from which his second wife and her son rescued him.

In a story of the Western Province numbered 240 in this volume, a Princess recovered her husband by giving a dana, or feast for poor people, and observing those who came to eat it. See also No. 247.

In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iii, p. 84), in the story of " Ali Shar and Zumurrud,” the lady, who while disguised as a man had been chosen as King, recovered her husband by giving a free feast to all comers at the new moon of each month, and watching the persons who came, her husband Ali Shar, then a poor man, being present at the fifth full moon. At each of the earlier feasts she found and punished men who had been responsible for her own and her husband’s misfortunes.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 101, a merchant’s son who was travelling through a waterless desert for seven days, kept his wife alive by giving her his own flesh and blood.

See vol. ii, Nos. 80 and 81, and the appended notes.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Lit., “tying the hand”; the little fingers of the bride and bridegroom are tied together by a thread in the marriage ceremony.

[2]:

Lit., “Water-thirst.”

[3]:

In the text this sentence follows the next one.

[4]:

Lit., a tri-ennium, a three-year, tun-awuruddak. This is an invention of the woman’s; there is no custom of the kind in Ceylon.

[5]:

Ewunda okkotama.

[6]:

Rajjuruwanda hemin.