Folklore of the Santal Parganas - Cecil Henry Bompas (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📗

unhappy girl had been betrothed and her wedding day was just

at hand. On the day fixed the marriage broker came to announce the

approach of the bridegroom; who shortly afterwards arrived at the

outskirts of the village in his palki. The seven brothers met him,

and the usual dancing began.

 

The bridegroom's party however wished to know why the bride did not

appear. The brothers put them off with various excuses, saying that

the girl had gone with her friends to gather firewood or to the river

to draw water. At last the bridegroom's party got tired of waiting

and turned to go home in great wrath at the way in which they had

been treated. On their way they passed by the tank in which the girl

had been sacrificed and, growing in the middle of it, they saw a most

beautiful flower. The bridegroom at once determined to possess this,

and he told his drummers to pick it for him; but whenever one of them

tried to pick it, the flower moved out of his reach and a voice came

from the flower saying:--

 

 

    "Take the flower, drummer,

    But the branch you must not break."

 

 

and when they told him what the flower sang the bridegroom said that

he would try and pick it himself; no sooner had he reached the bank

than the flower of its own accord floated towards him and he pulled it

up by the roots and took it with him into the palki. After they had

gone a little way the palki bearers felt the palki strangely heavy:

and when they looked in they found the bride also sitting in it,

dressed in yellow garments; for the flower was really the girl who

had been drowned.

 

So they joyfully took the happy couple with drumming and music to

the bridegroom's house.

 

In a short time misfortune befel the seven brothers; they fell into

the deepest poverty and were forced to earn what they could by selling

leaves and sticks which they gathered in the jungle. As they went about

selling these, they one day came to the village where their sister

was living and as they cried their wares through the streets they were

told to go to the house where the marriage had taken place. They went

there, and as they were selling their leaf plates their sister saw

and recognised them; they had only ragged loincloths on, and their

skins were black and cracked like a crocodile's.

 

At the sight their sister began to cry. Her friends asked what was

the matter and she said a straw from the thatch had run into her eye,

so they pulled down some of the thatch; she still went on crying and

they again asked what was wrong; she said that she had knocked her

foot against a stone in the ground; so they dug up the stone and threw

it away. But she still went on weeping and at last confessed that the

miserable-looking leaf-sellers were her brothers. Then her husband's

parents told her to be comforted, and they gave the brothers oil and

bade them go and bathe and oil their bodies: but the brothers were

so hungry that when they got to the bathing place they drank the oil

and ate the oil cake that had been given to them; and came back with

their skins as rough as when they went. So then they were given more

oil and some of the household went with them and made them bathe and

oil themselves properly and then brought them to the house and gave

them new clothes and made them a feast of meat and rice. According to

the custom of the country they were made to sit down in order of age

and were helped in that order; when they had all been helped and had

eaten, their sister said to them "Now brothers you come running to

me for food, and yet you sacrificed me in the tank." Then they were

overwhelmed with shame: they looked up at the sky but there was no

escape there; they looked down at the earth; and the earth split open

and they all ran into the chasm. The sister tried to catch the youngest

brother by the hair and pull him out, calling "Come back, brother,

come back brother, you shall carry my baby about for me!" but his

hair came off in her hand and the earth swallowed them all up. Their

sister planted the hair in a corner of the garden and it is said that

from that human hair, _sabai_ grass originated.

XXVI. (The Merchant's Son and the Raja's Daughter.)

 

Once a merchant's wife and a Raja's wife were both with child and one

day as they bathed together they fell into conversation, and they

agreed that if they both bore daughters then the girls should be

"flower friends" while if one had a son and one a daughter then the

children should marry: and they committed the agreement to writing. A

month or two later the Raja's wife bore a daughter and the merchant's

wife a son. When the children grew up a bit they were sent to school,

and as they were both very intelligent they soon learnt to read and

write. At the school the boys used to be taught in an upstairs room

and the girls on the ground floor. One day the boy wrote out a copy

of the agreement which their mothers had made and threw It down to

the girl who was below.

 

She read it and from that day they began to correspond with each other;

love soon followed and they decided to elope. They fixed a day and

they arranged that the boy should wait for the girl under a _turu_

tree outside the town. When the evening came the girl made haste to

cook her parents' supper and then, when they went to bed, she had

as usual to soothe them to sleep by rubbing their limbs; all this

took a long time and the merchant's son soon got tired of waiting,

so he sang to the tree:--

 

 

    "Be witness be witness for me 'Turu tree'

    When the Raja's daughter comes."

 

 

and so singing he tied his horse to the roots of the tree and himself

climbed up into the branches, and sitting in the tree he pulled off

and threw down a number of twigs. Late at night the Raja's daughter

came; she saw the horse tied and the twigs scattered on the ground,

but no other sign of her lover. And at last she got tired of waiting

and called the _Turu_ tree to witness, singing:--

 

 

    "Be witness be witness for me 'Turu tree'

    When the merchant's son comes."

 

 

As she finished her song the merchant's son threw down a large branch

to her, so she looked up and saw him sitting in the tree. Then she

climbed up to him and began to scold him for putting her to the pain

of waiting so long. He retorted "It was you who made me anxious by

keeping me waiting." "That was not my fault: you know how much work

a woman has to do. I had to cook the supper and put my parents to

bed and rub them to sleep. Climb down and let us be off." So they

climbed down from the tree and mounted the horse and rode off to

a far country. On the road the girl became very thirsty but in the

dense jungle they could find no water, at last the merchant's son

threw a stone at hazard and they heard it splash in a pool; so they

went in the direction of the sound and there they found water but it

was foul and full of worms and the girl refused to drink it. She said

that she would only drink water "which had a father and mother."

 

So they went on their way, and after a time they came to a number

of crows holding a meeting and in the midst was an owl with its head

nodding drowsily; it was seeing dreams for them; every now and then

a crow would give it a shove and ask what it had dreamt, but the owl

only murmured that it had not finished and went off to sleep again. At

last it said "I have seen a gander and a goose go down into a river

and swim about in it."

 

The merchant's son and his companion went on and presently came to

a river in full flood, which was quite uncrossable; on the far bank

was a cow lowing to a calf which had been left on the bank where they

were. When she saw them the girl began to sing:--

 

 

    "The cow lows for its calf

    The calf bleats for its mother:

    My father and mother

    Are weeping for me at home."

 

 

When he heard her lament like this the merchant's son exclaimed

 

"You women are all alike, come let us go back."

 

"How can we go back now?" answered the girl "You of course can pretend

that you have been hunting; but we women lose our character if we

are hidden by a bush for a minute."

 

So as they could not cross the river by themselves, a goose and gander

carried them across on their backs. As they went on the merchant's

son asked the girl how far she would like to go, a six days' journey

or a six months' journey. He told her that in the six months' journey

they would only have fruits and roots and such like to eat and water

to drink, but the six days' journey was easy and free from hardship.

 

The girl chose the six days' journey, so they went on for six days

and came to a stream on the banks of which stood a cottage in which

lived an old woman. Before they went up to it the girl told her lover

not to eat any rice given to him by the old woman but to throw it

to the fowls; then they went and asked to be allowed to cook their

food there; now the old woman had seven unmarried sons, who were away

hunting at the time, and when she saw the Raja's daughter she wished

to detain her and marry her to one of her sons. So in order to delay

them she gave them a damp stove and green firewood to cook with;

she also offered the merchant's son some poisoned rice but he threw

it to the fowls, and when they ate it they fell down dead.

 

The girl could not make the fire burn with the green wood, so

they hurried away as fast as they could without waiting to cook any

food. Before they started however the old woman managed to tie up some

mustard seed in a cloth and fasten it to their horse's tail, so that

as they rode, the seed was spilt along the road they took. When the

old woman's sons came back from hunting she greeted them by saying:

"Why did you not come back sooner? I have just found a pretty wife

for you; but I have tied mustard seed to their horse's tail and it is

being scattered along the road: in one place it is sprouting in another

it is flowering; in another it is seeding and in another it is ripe;

when you get to the place where it is ripe you will catch them." So

the seven brothers pursued the two lovers and caught them up, but

the merchant's son cut down six of them with his sword; the seventh

however hid under the horse's belly and begged for mercy and offered to

serve them as groom to their horse. This man's name was Damagurguria;

they spared his life and he followed them running behind the horse;

but he watched his opportunity and caught the merchant's son unawares

and killed him with his sword.

 

Then he told the girl that she belonged to him and she admitted