Story 204 - How a Girl took Gruel

IN a certain country there are a girl and the girl’s father, it is said. While they were there, one day the man went to plough, saying to the girl,

“Bring gruel to the rice field.”

They spring across a stream as they go to the rice field.

The girl, cooking gruel, pouring it into a wide-mouthed cooking-pot and placing the pot on her head, goes away to the field. While going there she met a Prince near the river.

The girl asked at the Prince’s hand,

“Where are you going ?”

Having told him to sit down and given to him from the gruel, she said,

“Go to our house and wait until the time when I come after giving the gruel to father;”

and placing the gruel pot on her head she went to the far bank of the river.

Then the Prince asked,

“Are you coming immediately ?”

The Princess said,

“Should [it] come [I] shall not come; should [it] not come, I shall come.”^[1]

The Prince got into his mind,

“This meant indeed (lit., said), ‘Should water come in the river I cannot come; should water not come I will come.’”

Again the Prince asked,

“On which road go you to your house ?”

Then the girl unfastened her hair knot; having unloosed it she went to the rice field.

Afterwards the Prince thought to himself,

“Because of the girl’s unloosing her hair knot she goes near the Kitul palm tree indeed.”^[2]

The Prince having gone near the Kitul tree to the girl’s home, remained lying down in the veranda until the girl came.

The girl having given the gruel came home. Having come there and cooked for the Prince she gave him to eat. Then the girl’s father came. After that, the girl and the Prince having married remained there.

While they were [there], one day the Prince said,

“I must go to our city.”

Then the girl also having said that she must go, as the girl and the girl’s father and the Prince, the three persons, were going along there was a rice field.

The girl’s father asked at the hand of the Prince,

“Son-in-law, is this rice field a cultivated rice field, or an unworked rice field ?”

Then the Prince said,

“What of its being cultivated! If its comers and angles are not cut this field is an unworked one.”

When they were going still a little distance there was a heap of fence sticks.

Concerning it the Prince asked,

“Father-in-law, are these cut fence-sticks, or uncut fence-sticks ?”

Then the father-in-law says,

“What of their being cut! If they are not sharpened these are uncut sticks.”

Well then, having gone in that manner, and gone to the Prince’s city, he made the girl and the girl’s father stay in a calf house near the palace, saying,

“This indeed is our house.”

The Prince having gone to the palace said at the hand of the Prince’s mother,

“Mother, I have come, calling [a wife] from such and such a city. The Princess is in that calf house. Call her and come back after going [there].”

After that, the Queen having gone near the calf house, when she looked a light had fallen throughout the whole of the calf house. The girl was in the house. ^vAfter that the Queen, calling the girl and the girl’s father, came to the palace.

Well then, the girl, and the girl’s father, and the Prince remained at the palace.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Notes:

The questions and answers re min d one of those asked and given by Mahosadha and Amara, the girl whom he married, in the Jataka story No. 546 (vol. vi, p. 182), and one remark is the same,—that regarding the river water.

Heroines are sometimes described as emitting a brilliant light, as in No. 145, vol. ii. In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 158, there is a Princess who " comes and sits on her roof, and she shines so that she lights up all the country and our houses, and we can see to do our work as if it were day.”

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 133, a heavenly maiden illuminated a wood, though it was night. In the same volume, p. 145, a girl " gleamed as if she were the light of the sun.” In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 484 S., the son of a Wazir asked a farmer whom he accompanied a number of cryptic questions which were understood by the farmer’s daughter, whom he afterwards married. They have a general resemblance to those in the Sinhalese story, but differ from them. In one he asked if a field of ripe com was eaten or not, meaning that if the owner were in debt it was as good as eaten already.

In Folklore of the Santal Parganas (Rev. Dr. Bodding) there are several instances of enigmatical replies of this kind. See pp. 269, 349 > 368. In a Kolhan tale appended to the vol. by Mr. Bompas, p. 462, a Princess who was in a Bel fruit had such brilliancy that the youth who split it open fell dead when he saw her.

In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), a brilliant Prince is described in vol. i, p. 301, and a heroine in vol. ii, p. 17. In vol. iii, p. 172, a Prince’s face shone like the moon among the stars. Buddha is usually described as possessing great brilliancy.

In No. 237 below, there is a Prince whose brilliance dazzled a Princess so much that she swooned.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Awot enne nae ; nawot ennan.

[2]:

Because Kitul fibre is like hair which is hanging loose.