Story 199 - The Wicked Step-mother

AT a certain city there are a King and a Queen. There are also two Princes.

During the time while they were living thus, while the Queen was lying down at noon, a hen-sparrow had built a house (nest) on the ridge-pole. The Queen remained looking at it. When the Queen was there on the following day [the bird] hatched young ones.

When they had been there many days, a young sparrow, having fallen to the ground, died. The Queen, taking the young sparrow in her hand, looked at it. Having opened its mouth, when she looked in it there was a fish spine in the mouth. The Queen threw the young one away.

After that, the hen-sparrow was not at the nest; another hen having come, stayed there. Afterwards, two young sparrows having fallen to the ground again and died, when the Queen taking them in her hand looked at them, two fish spines were in their mouths. The Queen threw them both away, too.

On account of what she saw the Queen thought,

“[This] is not the hen which hatched these young ones. [The cock-sparrow] having called in another one [as his mate], she has been making them eat these spines to kill them.”

Then from this the Queen got in her mind,

“When I am not [here] it will indeed be like this for my children.”

Well then, through that grief the Queen died.

After she died the King brought another Queen. This Queen beats and scolds the two Princes. Afterwards the Princes said to their father the King,

“We must go even to our uncle’s^[1] house.”

“Why must you go ?”

asked the King.

The Princes said,

“Our step-mother beats and scolds us.”

Afterwards the King said,

“Go there, you.”

When the two Princes went to their uncle’s house,

“What, Princes, have you come for ?”

the uncle asked.

“Our step-mother beats and scolds us; on that account we came.”

“If so, stay,” the uncle said.

Afterwards, when they had been there in that way not much time, as they were going playing and playing with oranges through the midst of the city, an orange fruit fell in the King’s palace.

Then the Princes asked for it at the hand of the Queen:

“Step-mother, give us that orange fruit.”

The Queen said,

“Am I a slave to drag about anybody’s orange ?”

After that, the big Prince having gone to the palace, taking the orange fruit came away.

Afterwards, tearing the cloth that was on the Queen’s waist, and stabbing herself with a knife [the Queen] awaited the time when the King, who went to war, came back.

The King having come asked, “What is it ?”

“Your two Princes having come and done [this] work went away.”

On account of it the King appointed to kill the two Princes. Having given information of it to the King’s younger brother also, the younger brother asked,

“What is that for ?”

The King said,

“After I went to the war these two Princes went to the palace, and tore the Queen’s cloth also, and having stabbed and cut her with their knives, the blood was flowing down when I came.”

After that, the King’s younger brother asked at the hand of those Princes,

“Why did you come and beat the Queen, and stab and cut her with the knife, and go away ?”

The Princes said,

“We did not do even one thing in that way. As we were coming playing and playing with oranges, our orange fruit having fallen in the palace, when we asked our step-mother for it she did not give it. ‘Am I a slave to drag about oranges ?’ she said. Afterwards we went into the palace, and taking the orange fruit went away. We did not do a thing of that kind,”

they said.

The King, however, did not take that to be true. “I must kill the two Princes,” he said. Their uncle took the word of the two Princes for the truth.

Afterwards the Princes’ uncle said,

“Go to the river, and [after] washing your heads come back.”

As they were setting off the Princes took a bow and arrow; and having gone to the river, while they were there, when they were becoming ready to wash their heads, two hares, bounding and bounding along, came in front of the two Princes.

Having seen the hares, the younger son said,

“Elder brother, shoot those two hares.”

He shot at them; at the stroke the two hares died.

The two Princes, washing their heads, took away the two hares also. Having gone-to the city, and given them into the uncle’s hand, the uncle plucked out the four eyeballs of the hares, and gave them into the Queen’s hands:—

“Here; they are the four eye-balls of the Princes,”

he said.

Afterwards, having looked and looked at the eyes, she brought an In̆di (wild Date) spike, and saying and saying,

“Having looked and looked with these eyes, did you torment me so much ?”

she went to the palace where the King was, and pierced [with the spike] the very four [eyes]. ,

After that, having cooked the hares’ flesh, and cooked and given them a bundle of rice, the uncle told the two Princes to go where they wanted, and both of them went away.

(Apparently the story is incomplete, but the narrator knew of no continuation, and I did not meet with it elsewhere.)

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Notes:

In The Jataka, No. 120 (vol. i, p. 265), a Queen of the King of Benares is described as scratching herself, rubbing oil on her limbs, and putting on dirty clothes in order to support the charge she brought against the Chaplain, of assaulting her during the King’s absence on a warlike expedition. In No. 472 (vol. iv, p. 118) a Queen scratched herself and put on soiled clothes in order to induce the King to believe that her son-in-law, Prince Paduma, had assaulted her. Paduma was accordingly sentenced to be thrown down a precipice.

In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding), p. 27, a Queen who was a Prince’s step-mother behaved in the same way until the King promised to kill the boy. He smeared the blood of a dog on his sword, and abandoned the boy in the forest.

In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 273, a King observed that two swallows had a nest in a veranda at the palace. The hen disappeared, having been caught by a falconer. The cock constantly attended to the young ones, but when it brought a fresh mate the two came only once on the second day, and the cock then disappeared. The King then examined the nest, and found in it four dead young ones, each with a thorn in its throat. He concluded that if his wife died and he married again the new Queen might ill-treat his two sons. After a while the Queen died and the King was persuaded by the Ministers to marry again. One day when the two Princes were amusing themselves with pigeons one of the birds alighted near the new Queen, who hid it under a basket and denied that she had seen it, but guided by signs made by an old nurse the younger Prince found and took it. On another occasion the elder Prince recovered one in the same way, though forcibly opposed by the Queen. The Queen then charged them with insulting her, the King banished them, and they went away.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 166, a King and Queen while in the veranda of the palace watched a pair of birds at a nest. One day a strange hen was seen to go with the cock to the nest, carrying thorns in her bill. When the nest was examined it was discovered that the thorns had been given to the young ones, and that they were dead. The King and Queen discussed it, and the King promised not to marry again if the Queen died. When she died, by the Ministers’ advice and after many refusals he married a Minister’s daughter who became jealous of the two Princes, complained of their disobedence and abusive language, and induced the King to order them to be killed in the jungle. There the soldiers’ swords being turned into wood they allowed the boys to escape. The rest of the story is given in the last note, vol. i, p. 91.

In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iv, p. 71), in the Sindibad-nameh, the favourite concubine of the King of China fell in love with his only son and offered to poison his father, but on his rejection of her offers she tore her robes and hair, and charged him with assaulting her. The seven Wazirs told the King tales of the perfidy of women, and persuaded him to countermand the death penalty to which the Prince was sentenced, the Prince explained the affair, and the woman was sent away.

In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 107, the favourite concubine of a King being repulsed by the Crown Prince, charged him with improper conduct towards her, and induced the King to send him to govern the frontier districts. She and a Counsellor then forged an order that he must pluck out and send his eyes. When she received them she hung them before her bed and addressed opprobrious language to them. The Prince became a flute player, and while earning a living thus, accompanied by his wife, was recognised -by his father, who scourged the two plotters 'with thorns, poured boiling oil on their wounds, and buried them alive.

In Santal Folk Tales (Campbell), p. 33, a raja and his wife observed the attention paid by a hen-sparrow to her young ones, and that after she died another mate who was brought let them die of hunger. The queen pointed this out, and told the raja to take care of her children in case she died. When he was persuaded by his subjects to marry afresh after her death, the new wife took a dislike to the elder son, and by an assumed illness induced the raja to exile him. The other brother accompanied him, and they had various adventures.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Bappa, the father’s younger brother.