Story 51 - The Aet-kanda Leniya

AT a certain city there are the King and the Queen, it is said. They had one son, and while the Prince was living there the Queen bore yet [another] Prince.

One day the two Princes having gone to the river to bathe, a Princess from another city came to bathe [at the same place], and the eldest Prince hid the robes of the Princess. Afterwards, on his inviting the Princess she went with the Prince to his city.    .

After they had gone there, when the King got to know of it he said,

“Should this rascal stay with me the kingdom will be destroyed,”

and he ordered them to behead the Prince. Then the Queen, the Prince’s mother, having cooked a bundle of rice and given it to him, said,

“Go away where you like [or the King will behead you].”

The Prince having taken the packet of cooked rice to the river, ate it with the Princess. After eating it the two persons went to the house of a widow woman. The Prince made the Princess stay with her, and having given the Princess’s robes into the hands of the widow woman, said,

“Mother, put those robes into that box and this box”

(that is, here and there, not all in one place, so that the Princess should not be able to find them).

Afterwards, when the Prince had gone to the forge to get a sword made, the Princess said to the widow woman,

“Mother, give me my robes to look at.”

The widow woman said,

“Ane ! Daughter, I don’t know where they are.”

The Princess said,

“Why are you telling me lies ? Give them to me.”

On account of that, the widow woman opened the boxes, and gave the robes to the Princess. The Princess took the robes, and saying,

“Should he see me again it will be as [wonderful as] if he should see the young of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, or white where charcoal has been rubbed,”

went away to the city of the Princess.

When the Prince came after getting the sword made, he asked at the hand of the widow woman, " Where is the Princess ? ”

The woman said, " On her asking for her robes I gave them. Taking them, she said, ‘ Should he see me again it will be as [wonderful as] if he should see the young of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, or white where charcoal has been rubbed’ [and then she went away].”

The Prince on that account rubbed and rubbed charcoal, and when he looked there was a little white [colour]. Having seen it, he told the widow woman to cook cakes. When they were cooked he took some and ate ; and tying up a cloth package of them, and taking it, and the sword, he went off. .

As he was passing through the middle of a forest, he saw a cobra beginning to climb a tree in which were the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya, and he cut it in two with the sword. While he was climbing the tree after killing it, the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya came to eat him.

Then he said to the little ones,

“O unrighteous ones ! Why are ye coming to eat me ? Look ye on the ground.”

When the Aet-Kanda little ones had looked on the ground, and seen the cobra that he had cut in two, they said,

“[As you have saved us from the cobra] we will render you any possible assistance.”

Then the Prince after going to the nest where they were, unfastened the package of cakes, and having given to them also, ate. After eating, the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya said,

“Mother will indeed eat you to-day when she has come.”

The Prince said,

“Ane ! Somehow or other you must save me.”

They said “Ha,” and made h im creep among their wings.    ’

While he was there the Aet-Kanda Leni (the female Rukh, their mother), having pierced with its claws a tusk elephant, came bringing it, after flying round the sea in three circles. After she had come she said,

“What is this, children ! Here is prey for you ; are you delaying to eat ? On other days you come screaming for it.”

Those young ones said, "Mother, to-day we are not hungry. Food has been given to us.”

“Whence ?” she asked.

The little ones said,

“There is a man with us ; [he gave it to us].”

“Show me him,”

the Aet-Kanda Leni said.

“You will eat him, mother,”

they replied.

The Aet-Kanda Leni said,

“I will not eat him.”

“If so, take us and swear,” ^[2]

the little ones said. Then the Aet-Kanda Leni swore,

“I will not eat him.”

After that, the little ones showed the Aet-Kanda Leni the Prince. The Prince said to the Aet-Kanda Leni,

“Look at the foot of the tree ; [I have saved your little ones by killing the cobra].”

After having looked, the Aet-Kanda Leni said,

“I will give you any possible assistance because you have done this.”

Afterwards, the Prince having descended from the tree was unable to cross the river. So the Aet-Kanda Leni broke a stick, and bringing it in her mouth told the Prince to hang from it. While the Prince was hanging, the Aet-Kanda Leni flew to the other side of the river ; after [leaving him there] she returned to the nest where the little ones were.

The Prince went on. As he was going along, some men were taking a great many elephants.

“What are you taking those elephants for ?”

he asked.

Those men said,

“We are taking them to kill at the city.”

The Prince said,

“I will give you these hundred masuran ; let them go.”

Those men, saying “Ha,” took the hundred masuran, and let the elephants go.

After that, when he had gone much further still, he saw men taking a great many pigs. The Prince asked,

“Where are you taking these pigs ?”

“We are taking them to kill at the city,”

the men replied.

The Prince said,

“I will give you these hundred masuran ; let them go.”

The men said “Ha,” and taking the hundred masuran let them go.

When the Prince had gone still a little further, men were taking a great quantity of turtle-doves.

“Where are you taking those turtle-doves ?”

he asked.

“We are taking them to the city to kill,”

the men replied.

The Prince said,

“I will give you these hundred masuran ; let the turtle-doves go.”

The men said “Ha,” and taking the hundred masuran let them go.

When he had gone a little further still, men were taking a great many fire-flies.

“Where are you taking them ?”

the Prince asked.

Those men replied,

“We are taking them to the city to fry.”

The Prince said,

“I will give you these hundred masuran ; let them go.”

The men said “Ha,” and taking the hundred masuran let them go.]

When he had gone a little further yet, seven widow women came to the well for water [which they said they wanted in order] to pour water on the head of that Princess, who had become marriageable. A widow woman said to that Prince,

“Take hold of this water-pot [and help me to lift it up].”

Then the Prince having taken the jewelled ring that was on his hand, put it in the water-pot [unobserved]; after that he took hold of the water-pot [and helped her to lift it].

When they had taken the water, and were pouring it on the head of the Princess, the jewelled ring fell down. Having seen it [and recognised it], the Princess ordered the woman to tell the Prince to come. So the Prince went there.

After he had gone there [and told her that he had made a white mark with charcoal, and had saved the lives of the little ones of the Aet-Kanda Leniya], that Princess said to the Prince,

“[Before I will marry you, you must perform the tasks that I shall give you. First you must] cut a chena suitable for sowing one and a. half amunas ^[3] of mun”

(a small pulse).

The Prince said “Ha,” and having gone and cut a branch or two at the chena, thought,

“Ane ! Will the elephants that I set free by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance ?”

Those elephants that he freed, having come at this word, broke down all that jungle and went away.

After that, the Prince went to the Princess, and said,

“The chena has been cut.”

“Then set fire [to it],” the Princess said. So the Prince went and set fire [to the bushes]. The chena burnt excellently ; nothing remained, so well it burnt.

Having gone to the Princess he said,

“I set fire to the ehena.”

Then the Princess gave him one and a half amunas of mun, and said,

“Sow this and come back.”

When the Prince had gone he took the mun and sowed it at the chena. Afterwards the Prince said,

“Ane ! Will the pigs that I set free by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance ?”

Then the pigs that he had freed by giving the hundred masuran all came and dug [with their snouts] the whole of the chena.

The Prince went to the Princess, and said,

“I have sowed the chena.”

After that, the Princess told him to collect and bring back the mun. that he had sown in the chena.

So the Prince having gone to the chena, and collected a little mug, said,

“Ane ! Will the turtle-doves that I freed by giving a hundred masuran render, an assistance ?”

Then the turtle-doves that he had set free having all come, picked up the whole.

The Prince, collecting it and taking it to the city said to the Princess,

“After collecting the mun that I sowed in the chena I have come back.”

“Then measure it,” she said. When he was measuring it there was one mun seed less. As she said this a turtledove dropped it at the measuring place.

After that, the father of the Princess put that Princess and seven widow women in a dark room. Having put them [there] the King said,

“Unless you select and take out the Princess, or if you take out any other person, I shall behead you.”

When the Prince had gone into the room [he thought],

“Will the fire-flies that I freed by giving a hundred masuran render an assistance ?”

Then all the fire-flies having come, fastened on the body of the Princess, as a lamp. After that, the Prince took the Princess out into the light.

[As he had performed all the tasks, the Prince was married to the Princess]. Afterwards the Prince, calling the Princess, went to the house of that widow woman.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Note:

In a variant of the first part of this story, a youth whose father was dead, and whose mother, finding him in the way, wanted to get rid of him in order to marry another man, was sent by his mother to bring some milk, to be used medicinally for curing a pretended illness of hers.

He was sent first to the Aet-Kanda Lihiniya (Leniya is an alternative spelling), and had the same experiences at its nest, before he got the milk. The young birds told their mother that he was their elder brother, the son of their Punci-Amma.^[4] When he stated that he. had come to ask for the milk, the Lihini (the female Rukh) said,

“Ando! Son, when did any one get milk from me, and cure a sick person with it ? She has done that to kill you, not through want of it. However, since you have come I will give you a little milk.”

One of the young birds accompanied him to his home. After his mother had drunk the milk she pretended to be still ill, and sent him for the milk of the Demon Hound,^[5] which lived in a cave in a forest. I translate this part:—

The woman cooked and gave him a packet of rice. This youth, taking the packet of cooked rice and his sword, and making the little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini stay at the house, went to the cave where the Demon Hound was. When he arrived, the Demon Hound was not there; only the little ones of the Demon Hound were there.

As the youth was going [to the cave] the little ones came growling to eat him. When this youth unfastened the packet of cooked rice, and showed them it, they stopped. Afterwards, the youth, having divided the packet of cooked rice, gave [part] to the Demon Hound’s little ones, and taking some himself, they ate.

After they had eaten, the young dogs said,

“When mother has come she will indeed eat you.”

Then this youth said,

“Ane ! To-day you must somehow or other save me. Do not let her eat me.”

The young dogs said “Ha,” and putting the youth in the hollow of the cave, the young dogs came to this side, [towards the entrance], and remained there lying down.

While they were there the Demon Hound came. After she had come she said, sniffing twice,

“Where does this smell of fresh human flesh come from ?”

The little ones of the Demon Hound replied,

“You eshat fresh human flesh, and you bring fresh human flesh ; what is this that you are saying ?”

The Demon Hound said,

“No, children, a fresh human smell is coming to me. Tell me [how it is]. Tell me.”

The little ones said,

“You will eat him.”

The Demon Hound said,

“No, children, I will not eat him. Tell me.”

The little ones said,

“Take us and swear.”

After that, the Demon Hound took her little ones and swore,

“I will not eat him.”

Then the little ones showed her that youth, saying,

“ Here he is, mother ; our little mother’s son has come, our elder brother.”

The Demon Hound asked at the hand of this youth,

“What, son, have you come for ?”

This youth replied,

“Mother, our mother is ill. On account of it she said, ‘ Should you go and bring a little milk, when I have drunk it I shall become well.’ Because of that I have come to ask for a little milk.”

The Demon Hound said,

“Ando ! Son, when did a sick person get milk from me and become well! To [get] you killed is the explanation of that. However, .since you have come, take a little milk and go.”

So saying she gave him a little milk.

Afterwards, as this youth was preparing to set off with it, a young dog said,

“I also want to go with our elder brother,”

and howling [on account of it was allowed by his mother] to come away with the youth.

Having arrived and given the milk to the woman, after she had drunk it he asked,

“Now then, mother, is your illness cured ?”

The woman said,

“Ando ! Son, it is not cured.”

The youth asked, " If so, what shall I do ? ”

The woman replied,

“Bring a little milk from the Bear that is in the cave in the forest, and give me it.”

He went for it, leaving the young Demon Hound at the house, and his adventures and the conversations were a mere repetition of those at the cave of the Demon Hound. One of the young Bears returned to the house with him.

Lastly, he was sent to bring the milk of the Crocodile that was in the Sea,

“the reservoir^[6] for the sky, and the reservoir for the earth.”

He ate his rice on a mound in the sea, after which, as he was descending into the sea, he observed a blue-lotus flower, and found the Crocodile at it. It came to eat him, but he held out his sword in front of him, so it asked him why he had come, and after hearing his explanation, in the very same words as before, gave him a little milk. It warned him, like the other animals, that the sending him for it was only a device to get him killed. He took the milk home, and after drinking it his mother informed him that she was cured. The story is then concluded as follows :—

Having said this, the woman went to the man [whom she wanted to marry], and said,

“Now then, there is no means of killing that one. From the places to which he went he has escaped and come back. What, then, shall we do to that one ?”

That man said,

“Cook to-day after it has become night. I will break something in the lower part of the garden. Then say, ‘ Son. There ! Did you hear something break in the lower part of the garden ? Maybe cattle have come in.’ He will come to see, and when he has come, I will chop him with the bill-hook, and kill him.”

Afterwards, this woman having returned to the house, as she was cooking when it became night, the man came and broke a stick in the lower part of the garden. The woman said,

“Ando! Son, maybe cattle have come in. Go quickly [and drive them out].”

Then, as this youth, having gone into the house and taken his sword, was going out, that little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini, and the little one of the Demon Hound, and the little one of the Bear went with him. The three of them having gone [in front] to the lower part of the garden, bit the man who waited there, and having killed him returned. When this youth went and looked, the man had been killed. Then the youth came back, and having killed his mother stayed quietly there. So that little one of the Aet-Kanda Lihini, and the little one of the Demon Hound, and the young Bear, and the youth remained at the house together.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Note 2:

There are Indian versions of several of the incidents of these stories.

In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 15, a Prince killed a cobra that was about to ascend a tree in order to destroy two eaglets. They assisted him afterwards.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 221, the Garudas or Rukhs are described as being “of the nature of vultures.” A Brahmana got hid among the back feathers of one while it was asleep, and was carried by it to the Golden City next day. These birds are referred to (vol. i, p. 78) as breeding on a mountain called Swarnamula, in Ceylon. Compare also the account of Bharunda birds in The Kathakosha (Tawney), p. 164. According to Prof. Sayce, the original idea of the Rukh is to be found in Zu, the storm-bird or god of the Sumerians (The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia, p. 353). .

A lion-headed eagle with outspread wings, holding a lion by each of its feet, formed the symbol of Lagash or Shirpurla, one of the earliest Sumerian cities. It was the emblem of Ningirsu, the god of the city (A History of Sumer and Akkad, by L. W. King, 1910, pp. 98, 100). According to Mr. King’s revised chronology, this takes back the notion of this gigantic eagle, which carried off and devoured the largest quadrupeds, to the fourth millenium B.C. Its Sumerian name was Imgig,

In Folk-Tales of Bengal (Day), p. 134, a Prince’s wife, disguised as a Sannyasi, or Hindu religious mendicant, on her way to join her husband who was ill—poisoned by lying on powdered glass that was spread over his bed—rested under a tree in which a pair of Rukhs (in this story called Bihangama and Bihangam i) had their nest, containing two young birds. She cut in two a snake that was about to climb the tree, and that was accustomed to kill the young ones each year. She overheard the conversation of the birds, which was to the effect that some of their droppings would cure the Prince, if reduced to powder and applied with a brush to the Prince’s body, after bathing him seven times, with seven jars of water and seven jars of milk. One of the birds carried her on his back to the Prince, with the rapidity of lightning. At p. 219, we learn that the dung of the young of this bird, when applied fresh to the eyeballs, would cure blindness.

At pp. 189 and 192, a puppy and a young hawk joined a Prince on his journey, but apparently owing to the omission of some incident of the tale they were of no service to him. Such omissions are common ; they can only be supplied by collecting variants.

In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), pp. 74, 75 —Tales of the Punjab, pp. 66, 67—a crow, peacock, and jackal in turn warned a girl against a robber with whom she was going.

At p. 273 —Tales of the Punjab, p. 259—Prince Rasalu was given the task of separating a hundred-weight of millet seed from a hundred-weight of sand with which it had been mixed. This was done for him by crickets in return for his saving a cricket from a fire.

In the Jataka story No. 444 (vol. iv, pp. 19, 20), a man laid his hand on the head of a boy who had been bitten by a snake, and then repeated a Spell to restore him to health. The boy's father laid his-hand on the boy’s breast while saying a second spell.

In the Tamil Story of Madana Kama Raja, or “Dravidian Nights” (Natesha Sastri), p. 21 ff., a Prince purchased for a hundred pagodas apiece, a kitten and a snake, which he reared for twelve years. They assisted him afterwards.

At p. 91 ff., a Prince was ordered by a King to bring snake’s poison, and afterwards whale’s fat.

At p. 109 ff., a Prince who had four heavenly wives lost them through his mother’s returning to one of them her celestial garment, which had been concealed. When in search of a way to his wives, he saved an Ant-King, a Frog-King, and a Cricket-King. He went to Indra, who gave him four tasks, of which one was that after an acre of land had been sown with sesame seed and ploughed one hundred times, he was to collect all the seeds. The Ant-King brought his subjects- and collected them for him. Another of the tasks, the last one, was the selection of Indra’s daughter, who was one of his wives, from the four, who were all given the same appearance. The Cricket-King enabled him to do this, by hopping onto her foot.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Also written Lihiniya, “the Glider,” a name applied to some hawks and swallows, etc. The whole name is “Tusk-Elephant-Mountain Hawk,” or Eagle, I could learn nothing of the “Tusk-Elephant Mountain.” This bird is the Rukh or Roc of the Arabian Nights.

[2]:

Apparently she was to swear by them, touching them at the time. See No. 8, jn which a Prince and Princess touched each other when swearing an oath.

[3]:

An amuna is 5'7 bushels in the district where this story was told.

[4]:

Little Mother, an expression meaning the mother’s younger sister, or the step-mother.

[5]:

Yabbaelli, apparently a kind of demon in the shape of a dog.

[6]:

Talla.