Story 54 - The Mouse Maiden

THERE are a King and a Queen of a certain city, and there is a daughter of the Queen.

They asked [permission] to summon the daughter to go [in marriage] to the Prince of another city. The King said “Ha,” so they came from that city to summon the King’s Princess. After coming, they told the bride to come out [of her chamber] in order to eat the rice [of the wedding-feast]. The Queen said,

“She is eating cooked rice in the house.”

Then they told her to come out in order to dress her in the robes [sent by the bridegroom (?)]. The Queen said,

“She is putting on robes [in her chamber].”

Then they told her to come out in order to go [to the bridegroom’s city]. So the Queen told two persons to come, and having put a female Mouseling ^[1] in an incense box, brought it, and gave it into the hands of the two persons, and said,

“Take ye this, and until seven days have gone by do not open the mouth of the box.”

Having taken it to the city, when they opened the mouth of the box after seven days, a mouse sprang out, [and hid itself] among the cooking pots.

i There was also a (servant) girl at the Prince’s house. The girl apportioned and gave cooked rice and vegetable [curry] to the Prince, and covered up the cooking pots [containing the rest of the food]. Then the Mouseling came, and having taken and eaten some of the cooked rice and vegetables, covered up the cooking pots, and went again among the pots.

On the following day the same thing occurred. The Prince said to the girl.

“Does the Mouseling eat the cooked rice ? Look and come back.”

The girl having gone and looked, came back and said,

“She has eaten the cooked rice, and covered the cooking pots, and has gone.”

The Prince said,

“Go thou also, and eat rice, and come back.”

So the girl went and ate rice, and returned.

Next day the Prince said,

“I am going to cut paddy (growing rice). Remain thou at the house, and in the evening place the articles for cooking near the hearth.”

Then the Prince went. Afterwards, in the evening the girl placed the things for cooking near the hearth, and went out of the way.

The Mouseling came, and cooked and placed [the food ready], and again went behind the pots. After evening had come, that girl apportioned and gave the rice to the Prince.

The Prince ate, and told the girl,

“Go thou also, and eat rice, and come back.”

So the girl went and ate rice, and having covered the cooking pots came to the place where the Prince was.

Then the Mouseling came and ate rice, and covered up the pots. After that, she said to the [other] mice,

“Let us go and cut the paddy,”

and collecting a great number of mice, cut all the paddy, and again returned to the house, and stayed among the pots. Next day when the Prince went to the rice field to cut the paddy, all had been cut.

Afterwards the Prince came back, and saying,

“Let us. go. and collect and stack [the paddy],”

collected the men, and stacked it, and threshed it by trampling [it with buffaloes]. Then they went and called the women, and having got rid of the chaff in the wind, brought the paddy home.

After they had brought it, the Prince went near the place where the cooking pots were stored, at which the Mouseling was hidden, and said,

“Having pounded this paddy [to remove the husk], and cooked rice, let us go to your village [to present it to your parents, as the first-fruits].”

The Mouseling said,

“I will not. You go.”

So the Prince told the girl to pound the paddy and cook rice, and having done this she gave it to the Prince.

The Prince took the package of cooked rice, and went to the Mouseling’s village, and gave it to the Mouseling’s mother.

The Queen asked at the hand of the Prince,

“Where is the girl ?”

The Prince said,

“She refused to come.”

The Queen said,

“Go back to the city, and having placed the articles for cooking near the hearth, get hid, and stay in the house.”

After the Prince returned to the city, he did as she had told him. The Mouseling having come out, took off her mouse-jacket, and [assuming her shape as a girl] put on other clothes. While she was preparing to cook, the Prince took the mouse-jacket, and burnt it.

Afterwards, when the girl went to the place where the mouse-jacket had been, and looked for it, it was not there. Then she looked in the hearth, and saw that there was one sleeve in it.

While she was there weeping and weeping, the Prince [came forward and] said,

“Your mother told me to bum the mouse-jacket.”

So the Mouseling became the Princess again, and the Prince and Princess remained there.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Note:

The notion of a skin dress that could be put off and on, and that transformed a person into one of the lower animals, is well-known in folk-tales. It is found in Old Deccan Days (Frere), pp. 183, 193, where a King had a jackal-skin coat which turned him into a jackal when he put it on, until it was burnt.

At p. 222, a Princess concealed herself by putting on the skin of an old beggar woman. She was discovered when she removed it in order to -wash it and herself. In the end it was burnt by the Prince she had married, and she retained her true form as a Princess.

In Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes), p. 4r S.; there is a Prince who had a monkey skin, which he could put on and off as he wished.

In Indian Nights’ Entertainment, Panjab (Swynnerton), p. 344, four fairies came in the form of doves, and took off their feather dresses in order to bathe. A Prince concealed one dress, and the fairy was unable to resume her bird form and fly away.

In The Story of Madana Kama Raja, or “Dravidian Nights” (Natesha Sastri), pp. 56, 57, there is an account of a tortoise Prince who had the power of leaving his shell and assuming his human form. His mother one day saw the transformation, and smashed the shell, after which he remained a Prince.

In Folk-Tales of Hindustan, Allahabad (Shaik Chilli), p. 54 S., the daughter of the King of the Peris had the form of a monkey while she wore a monkey’s skin, and her own form at other times. When a Prince burnt the skin she took nre, and flew away in a blaze to her father’s palace. While she was ill there, the Prince discovered her and cured her, and she did not resume her monkey form.

The feather-vest of the Dove-maidens—female Jinn—in the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed.), iii, p. 417 fi,, is well known. They removed it for bathing, and could not fly without it.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Mi Paetikki. It might be either a rat or a mouse.