Story 125 - How A Woman Became A Lapwing

^[1]

AT a certain village there were an elder sister and a younger brother, it is said. He gave the elder sister^[2] in diga [marriage] to a [man of another] country. For the younger brother they brought a wife to the house.

When no long time had gone after the elder sister was given in diga, the elder sister’s husband died; and being without [anything] to eat or drink, the elder sister came to the younger brother's house in order to beg for something.

At that time, the man said,

“Ade ! Give our elder sister amply to eat and drink, and having tied up and given a bag of paddy amounting to a load, send her on her journey;”

and in order to look at his wife’s trustworthiness or untrustworthiness he stayed in a tree behind the house, looking out, near the path on which the elder sister goes.

Thereupon, the man’s wife, having given the man’s elder sister a piece of stale cake to eat, put in a [mat] box a little worthless paddy chaff that had been blown away when she fanned paddy, and gave her it.

After that, when this elder sister, being grieved, was going on the path, she went saying and saying,

“Ane ! If my younger brother were there she would not do thus. Sister-in-law gave me only paddy chaff and a few stale cakes; but [even] should my sister-in-law do magic against me, may a shower of flowers rain at my younger brother’s doorway.”

Then, weeping and weeping she came home.

Then the younger brother who stayed in the tree having been hearing that word, came home, and asked his wife,

“Ade! Didst thou give my elder sister amply to eat and drink ?”

The woman said,

“Andoma ! When she had eaten I tied up a bag of paddy equal to a load, and gave it. What else will you tell me to give ?”

Thereupon the man having said,

“It is good,”

and having been keeping it in his mind, after two or three days had gone, said,

“Ade ! Thy mother is ill. Prepare something and give me it [as a present for her, to enable me] to look at her and return,”

he said. The man said it falsely.

The woman saying,

“Perhaps it is true,”

cooked a packet of rice, and taking thirty ridis,^[3] put them at the bottom of the packet of cooked rice, and tied and gave him it, for him to go to her parents’ house and return. Unknown to the man^[4] she did this dishonesty (i.e., put his money in the bag).

Thereupon the man, taking the packet of cooked rice, went to the house of the man’s elder sister. That day he remained there without coming back.

That elder sister having unfastened the bag, when she looked [saw that] at the bottom of the rice there were thirty ridis. Afterwards the elder sister called the younger brother and asked,

“Younger brother, whence are these thirty ridis at the bottom of the rice in this bag ?”

The younger brother said,

“ I told her of our house (ape gedara eki^[5]) to cook and give me a packet of rice, in order to go to her village. She will have put in the thirty ridis.”

At that time a washerwoman who stayed in that village brought clothes to the younger brother's house. Thereupon this woman (his wife) asked at the hand of the washerwoman (radawi atin),

“ Washerwoman-aunt, our house man went to go to [my] village and return. Didn't you meet him on the way ?”

The washerwoman said,

“Ane ! Madam (mahattine), on the road indeed I did not meet with him; he is staying at the gentleman’s (rahamille) elder sister's house. Except that it seemed that he is^[6] at the house itself, he did not [otherwise] go to your quarter.”

Thereupon, at that instant^[7] a disturbance (internal) having come to her, while this woman was saying,

“Is it true, washerwoman ? Is it true, washerwoman ? Saw you him, washerwoman ? Saw you him, washerwoman ? Gave he them, washerwoman ? Got she them, washerwoman ? There are thirty ridis, there are thirty, there are thirty,”^[8]

except that she got her breath upwards, she did not hold it down. Having gone in that very manner, when she said there were thirty ridis she became a female Red-wattled Lapwing,^[9] and flew away. Now also the Red-wattled Lapwings say, “Hotae tikiri, hotae tikiri.”^[10] From that time, indeed, the Red-wattled Lapwings increased.

Then the man having come back, not contracting another marriage he remained providing subsistence for his elder sister.

Well then, we came here.^[11]

North-western Province.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Another title is, “The Story of Thirty Ridis.”

[2]:

In a variant she is his younger sister.

[3]:

Lit., “silvers.” In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. i, p. 234) there is a similar expression denoting silver coins: “I gave the servant a few silvers.” The ridi or larin is the silver wire “hook-money,” at first imported from the Persian Gulf, where it was coined in Laristan, but afterwards made in Ceylon.

Captain Robert Knox says of it,

“There is another sort, which all People by the King’s Permission may and do make. The shape is like a fishhook, they stamp what mark or impression on it they please”

(Hist. Relation of Ceylon, 1681, p. 97).

Baldaeus remarked,

“The most current coin here are the silver Laryns each whereof is worth about tenpence ... as well in Ceylon as Malabar two golden Fanams, at five-pence a piece, make a Laryn”

(A Description of y‘ East India Coasts, etc., translation, 1672, p. 727).

As a later value I was informed that three ridis were equal to one rupee. Further information regarding this money will be found in the Additional Notes at thj end of vol. iii.

[4]:

E minihata himin. Hirmn, hemin, or semin commonly means slowly, gently; hence in village talk, secretly, unperceived, unknown to.

[5]:

See footnote on the first page of No. 201, vol. iii.

[6]:

Innawa pewuni.
 

[7]:

E parama, lit., at the very stroke.

[8]:

The words are an imitation of the rapidly-uttered alarm notes of the common Lapwing of Ceylon:—

Haebaeda ridiye,
haebaeda ridiye,
daekkada ridiye,
dutuwada ridiye,
dunnada ridiye,
gattada ridiye,
ridi tihayi, tihayi, tihayi.

[9]:

Kirali (Lobivanellus indicus).

[10]:

Perhaps this means, “[Our] bills are small.”

[11]:

The narrator is supposed to have been a spectator.