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

days later found the jackal caught in it. He took

a stick to beat its life out, but the jackal cried: "Spare me and I

will find you a wife." So Jogeshwar stayed his hand and released the

jackal who promised at once to set off about the business.

 

The jackal kept his word and went to a city where a Raja lived. There

he sat down on the bank of one of the Raja's tanks. To this tank the

servants from the palace brought the pots and dishes to be washed,

and to this tank also came the Rani and princesses to bathe. Whenever

the servants came to wash their dishes, the jackal kept on repeating:

"What sort of a Raja is this whose plates are washed in water in

which people have bathed? there is no Raja like Raja Jogeshwar: he

eats of golden plates and yet he never uses them a second time but

throws them away directly he has eaten off them once."

 

The servants soon carried word to the Raja of the jackal who sat by

the tank and of his story of Raja Jogeshwar. Then the Raja sent for

the jackal and asked why he had come: the jackal answered that he was

looking for a bride for Raja Jogeshwar. Now the Raja had three or four

daughters and he thought that he saw his way to a fine match for one

of them. So he sent for the young women and asked the jackal to say

whether one of them would be a suitable bride for Raja Jogeshwar. The

jackal chose the second sister and said that he would go and get the

consent of Raja Jogeshwar.

 

The jackal hurried back and told the astonished weaver that he had

found a Raja's daughter for him to marry. Jogeshwar had nothing to

delay him and only asked that an early day might be fixed for the

wedding. So the jackal went back to the Raja and received from him

the knotted string that fixed the date of the wedding.

 

The jackal had now to devise some means by which Jogeshwar could

go through the wedding ceremonies without his poverty being found

out. He first went to the Raja and asked how many attendants Raja

Jogeshwar should bring with him, as he did not want to bring more

than the bride's father could entertain. The Raja was too proud to

fix any number and said they could bring as many as they liked.

 

Jogeshwar having no relations and no money, was quite unable to arrange

for a grand procession to escort him; he could only just afford to hire

a palki in which to be carried to the bride's house; so the jackal

sent word to all the jackals and paddy birds of the neighbourhood to

come to a feast at the palace of the bride, an invitation which was

eagerly accepted. At the time fixed they started off, with all the

paddy birds riding on the backs of the jackals. When they came within

sight of the palace, the jackal ran on ahead and invited the Raja to

come out and look at the procession as there was still time to send

them back, if they were too many, but it would be a great disgrace

if they were allowed to arrive and find no entertainment. The Raja

went out to look and when he saw the procession stretching away for a

distance of two miles or more with all the paddy birds looking like

white horsemen as they rode on the backs of the jackals, his heart

failed him and he begged the jackal to send them away, as he could

not entertain such a host.

 

So then the jackal hurried back and turned them all away and Jogeshwar

reached the palace, accompanied only by his palki bearers.

 

Before the wedding feast, the jackal gave Jogeshwar some hints as to

his behaviour. He warned him that three of four kinds of meat and

vegetables would be handed round with the rice, and bade him to be

sure to help himself from each dish--of course in his own house the

poor weaver had never had more than one dish to eat with his rice--and

when _pan_ was handed to him after the feast he was not to take any

until he had a handful of money given him; by such behaviour he would

lead every one to think that he was really a prince. Jogeshwar did

exactly as he was told and was thought a very grand personage.

 

The next evening Jogeshwar set off homewards with his bride, the

bride's brothers and attendants accompanying them. They travelled on

and on till the bride's party began to grow tired and kept asking the

jackal how much further they had to go. The jackal kept on putting them

off, till at last they came in sight of a grove of palm trees, and he

told them that Raja Jogeshwar's palace stood among the palm trees but

was so old and weather worn that it could not be seen from a distance.

 

When they reached the palm grove and found nothing but Jogeshwar's

humble hut, the bride's brothers turned on the jackal and asked what

he meant by deceiving them. The jackal protested that he had told no

lies: the weaver ate every day off plates made of dry leaves and threw

them away when done with and that was all he meant when he talked of

golden plates. At this excuse they turned on him and wanted to beat

him, but he ran away and escaped.

 

The bride's friends went back and told the Raja how things had turned

out and as divorce was not lawful for them, the Raja could only send

for his daughter and her husband and give them an estate to live on.

 

 

LVI. (The Strong Man.)

 

There was once a Strong man but no one knew of his strength. He was in

the service of a farmer who made him headman over all his labourers. In

those days much of the country was still covered with jungle. One

day the farmer chose a piece of forest land which he thought suitable

for cultivation and told his labourers to set to work and clear it,

and as usual after giving his orders he troubled himself no more

about the matter, as he could fully rely on the Strong man.

 

The next morning, the Strong man set the other labourers to work

ploughing a field and then said that he would go and have a look

at the jungle which his master wanted cleared. So he went off alone

with only a stick in his hand. When he reached the place, he walked

all round it, and saw how much could be made into good arable land,

and then he began to clear it. He pulled up the trees by the roots and

piled them into a heap and he took the rocks and threw them to one side

and made the ground quite clear and smooth, and then went back to the

house. On being asked why he had been so long away, he answered that he

had been pulling up a few bushes at the place which was to be cleared.

 

The following morning the Strong man told the farm labourers to take

their ploughs to the clearing and begin to plough it. When the farmer

heard this, he was puzzled to think how the land could be ready for

ploughing so soon, and went to see it and to his amazement found the

whole land cleared, every tree pulled up by the roots and all the

rocks removed.

 

Then he asked the Strong man whether he had done the work by

himself. The Strong man answered "no," a number of people had

volunteered to help him and so the work had been finished in a day.

 

The farmer said nothing but he did not believe the story and saw that

his servant must really be a man of marvellous strength. Neither

he nor the farm labourers let any one else know what had happened,

they kept it to themselves.

 

Now the Strong man's wages were twelve measures of rice a year. After

working for four years he made up his mind to leave his master and

start farming on his own account. So he told the farmer that he wished

to leave but offered to finish any work there was to do before he went,

that no one might be able to say that he had gone away, leaving his

work half done. The farmer assured him that there was nothing for

him to do and gave him rice equal to his four years' wages. The rice

made two big _bandis_, each more than an ordinary man could lift,

but the Strong man slung them on to a bamboo and carried them off

over his shoulder.

 

After he had gone a little way, it struck the farmer that it would

not do to let him display his strength in this way and that it would

be better if he took the rice away at night. So he had the Strong man

called back and told him that there was one job which he had forgotten

to finish; he had put two bundles of sahai grass into the trough to

steep and had forgotten to twist it into string. Without a word the

Strong man wait and picked the _sabai_ out of the water and began

to twist it, but he could tell at once by the feel that the _sabai_

had only just been placed in the water and he charged the farmer with

playing a trick on him. The farmer swore that there was no trick and,

rather than quarrel, the Strong man went on with the work.

 

While he was so engaged the farmer offered him some tobacco, and the

Strong man took it without washing and wiping his hands. Now no one

should prepare or chew tobacco while twisting sabai; if one does not

first wash and dry one's hands one's strength will go. The Strong

man knew this, but he was so angry at being called back on false

pretences that he forgot all about it.

 

But when he had finished the string and the farmer said that he might

go, he essayed to take up the two _bandis_ of rice as before. To his

sorrow he found that he could not lift them. Then he saw the mistake

that he had made. He had to leave one _bandi_ behind and divide the

other into two halves and sling them on the bamboo and carry them

off with him.

 

The Strong man's cultivation did not prosper, and after three or four

years he found himself at the end of his means and had again to take

service with a farmer.

 

One day when field work was in full swing the Strong man had a quarrel

with his new master. So when he had finished the morning's ploughing

he pulled the iron point of the ploughshare out of its socket and

snapped it in two. Then he took the pieces to his master and explained

that it had caught on the stump of a tree and got broken. The master

took the broken share to the blacksmith and had it mended. The next

day the Strong man went through the same performance and his master

had again to go the blacksmith. The same thing happened several days

running, till at last the farmer decided to keep watch and see what

really happened. So he hid himself and saw the Strong man snap the

ploughshare in two; but in view of such a display of strength he was

much too frightened to let his servant know that he had found out

the trick that was being played on him. He took the pieces to the

blacksmith as usual and at the smithy he found some of his friends

and told them what had happened. They advised him to set the Strong

man to twisting sabai string and then by some pretext induce