A design
A flower
A design
A diamond shining in his forehead
East Indian Fairy Tales
Relating how a baby with a diamond in his forehead grewto be a man, and what he did for his brothers.
IN the very heart of the jungle there stood a very old tree. It was older than any other tree there and had seen many wonderful things. It was very wise, too, and knew many secrets.
Every spring it put out fresh green leaves and lovely white blossoms, but one year the flowers were more beautiful than ever, and among them, on one of the lower branches, was a bud which hung there like a silver globe among the green leaves.
"I wonder why that bud is so much larger than the others," said the rose-apple tree, who had a great deal of curiosity.
"It holds a secret," replied the fig-tree, who was quite a gossip and loved to talk to the other trees.
"But when shall we know the secret?" asked the rose-apple tree.
"In the middle of the night there will be a thunder-storm and then the bud will open. You will see it by the lightning."
But when the storm came and the thunder roared and the lightning flashed, the rose-apple tree was afraid and dared not look up. But the fig-tree watched the grand old tree stretch its branches out bravely to the tempest, and in the midst of it saw the white bud burst open as the third bough laid it gently on the ground.
Inside the flower lay the prettiest little baby ever seen, curled up as if asleep, as lovely as a flower himself, and then his eyes opened and he lay smiling at the sky and watching the blue-white lightning flashing across it.
Then when morning came and all around was bright and calm and still once more, the baby put out his tiny hand and played with the flowers.
"He must be a wonderful baby," said the fig-tree. "See his little white silk shirt; it is just the color of the flower in which he was born, and look, he has a diamond shining in his forehead!"
"Perhaps it is a star and not a diamond," said the rose-apple tree; but because of its brightness it could not tell which it was.
Then the humming-birds and the parrots and the monkeys and the jackals all came to look at the baby. "He would be better off if he had wings like mine," said a humming-bird.
"Or if he had plumage like mine," said a parrot.
"Fur like mine would be much better for him," added a jackal; but they all agreed that he was a very wonderful baby, or he would not have a star in his forehead.
By and by the child cried just a little bit, for he was hungry, but the fig-tree bent a bough and dropped honey into his mouth, and then he smiled again.
And then when sunset came a tigress stole quietly up to the child.
"I'll bring my cubs here," she said to herself. "He will do for their supper." But the flowers and the grasses covered him up so that she could not find him when she came back again.
"We will not let any harm come to him," said the flowers and the grasses. "He is our baby."
"What shall we call him?" asked the trees, and the old tree which had borne the beautiful bud said, "His name is Nazim, and you must all of you take care of him and teach him the secrets of the jungle."
And so as Nazim grew up, the trees and the wild flowers and all the creatures in the jungle taught him all they knew. The monkeys taught him how to climb trees, and Dame, the great turtle who lived in the river, taught him how to swim.
The humming-birds showed him where the wild fruits grew and which of the blossoms had honey in their cups; and he learned to know the herbs which would heal bruises, and how to charm the jungle snakes, and many other things which children who live in houses never know.
The monkeys taught him to climb trees
Early every morning he bathed in the river, hanging his white silk shirt to dry on a tree, and at night he slept in a hammock under the fig-tree, which the flowers made for him of their twining tendrils.
He became a tall and beautiful boy, as good and gentle as he was strong and fearless, and as for clothes, his white silk shirt grew as he grew and never wore out or wanted mending. All the animals in the jungle loved him, even the tigress who had wanted her cubs to eat him when he was a baby.
One day Nazim said to the old tree, "There are a great many parrots and jackals and monkeys. Are there no others like me; is there only one Nazim?"
And the old tree asked, "Why do you want to know?" And Nazim replied wistfully, "I should like to see them."
Then the old tree said, "Climb to my topmost branch, and tell me what you see;" and when Nazim had done this he cried out, "I see a hill with a very sharp point."
All the animals loved him
"Near the top of that hill, which is the needle-shaped hill, is a tree covered with bright pink blossoms. It is called Kidsadita," said the old tree. "Go up to it and smell the flowers and ask where the Four Brothers are."
So through the jungle Nazim ran to the needle-shaped hill, and there was Kidsadita, the pink-flowering tree. "Where are the Four Brothers?" he asked, as he smelt the blossoms.
"On the other side of the hill," said Kidsadita. "They are preparing their supper."
Then Nazim went on, around the hill, and there were four tall men cutting up a deer which they had killed. As he came near they thought they had never seen so beautiful a boy, and ran to meet him. He was indeed a beautiful boy, dressed all in white, the star shining in his forehead and a look of gentle love on his face.
"We are four brothers; will you be the fifth?" they asked Nazim. "Will you be one of us?"
"I will be your brother," replied Nazim, "for that is why I came. All the creatures in the jungle had brothers and sisters, and I had none. I wanted to find some brethren."
Then Chimo, the youngest brother, said there were two things they wanted. One of these was fire to cook their meat, for they were obliged to eat the flesh of the deer raw; and the other was a wife for each of them.
Four men cutting up a deer
Then one of the other brothers said that the giant Rikal Gouree had a fire burning on his hearth and four daughters who were anxious to get married. They knew that he lived not very far away, but they had never been able to find his house, so they were still without wives and firebrands to light the wood with which to cook the deer they killed.
"If you will give me a bulrush," said Nazim, "I will show you the way to his house." So Chimo brought him a bulrush and Nazim fitted it to his bowstring; then he bent the bow, letting the bulrush fly straight to Rikal Gouree's palace. "Follow my arrow," cried Nazim. "It has cleared a path for you, and you shall find what you want."
Then the Four Brothers followed the path Nazim's arrow had made, but Chimo, who was the swiftest runner, came to the giant's palace first.
Rikal Gouree was sleeping by the fire in an immense room where the couches were twenty feet long and eight feet high. The fireplace was like a huge, red, glowing cavern in which whole tree-trunks lay burning instead of logs, and the ceiling was so high that Chimo could hardly see it.
Chimo stole a look at the sleeping giant and then snatched up a firebrand and ran for the door. But as he passed the sleeping giant a spark from the brand lighted on Rikal Gouree's hand.
The giant sprang up with a cry of pain and rushed out of the house after Chimo, but could not catch him. In his flight Chimo dropped the fire-brand and got back to his brothers with nothing to show for his trouble but a bad fright.
"We want to leave Rikal Gouree alone," he told them. "I would rather eat raw flesh all my life than go near that monster again."
Chimmo dropped the firebrand
Finding he could not catch Chimo, the giant went back to his house and into the room where his wife and four daughters were. He was very cross, for he had lost his nap and the burn on his hand pained him.
As soon as he had thrown himself into his great chair his oldest daughter asked him, "Have you got husbands for us yet?" Every day one of his daughters asked him this question and the sulky old giant would reply, "No! who can get husbands for four daughters all at once?"
Then the youngest daughter asked her father who the young man was that she had seen running away from the house. He told her that while he was asleep a young man had come in and stolen a firebrand.
"I think you did very wrong to send him away," said the giant's wife. "He would have been one husband at any rate, and giants' daughters do not get husbands easily. Here is the arrow which came into the room this morning, which was a sign that men would soon follow it. You have done a very foolish thing and we shall probably suffer for it."
Some giants' wives are afraid of their husbands, but this one was not, and she went on to give her husband such a scolding that Rikal Gouree was glad to get away and go to sleep by the fire again.
"Have you got husbands for us?"
After a while the giant was awakened by beautiful music which came from a tree which grew close to his palace wall. He lay still enjoying the sweet sounds, but presently they seemed to call him outside, and looking up he saw Nazim sitting on one of the branches of the tree playing on a lute.
Underneath the tree the dogs and cats and all the other animals belonging to him were listening to the music, and the boughs were covered with birds who were listening too. Presently the music grew so merry that Rikal Gouree held up his skirts and began to dance.
"What a silly old man you are!" cried his wife as she came out of the house and saw what he was doing. "You silly old man!" But in a few minutes she was dancing too, holding up her saree with one hand like a young girl, while her bangles and anklets tinkled merrily.
Then the giant called to Nazim, "Here, young man, come down from the tree and I will give you anything you want."
"Then you must give me your four daughters," said Nazim. "Each of my four brothers wants a wife, and you must give us, besides, a firebrand from your hearth."
"I knew the arrow was a true omen," cried the giant's wife, and then his daughters came forward and gave Nazim his arrow, which they had kept very carefully. They were so pleased that they said good-bye to their father and mother, and taking as many clothes and jewels as they could carry on their heads, they set out with Nazim.
Their clothes on their heads
On they went until they came to the needle-shaped hill where the pink-flowering tree Kidsadita was, and there they married the Four Brothers and lived very happily together.
Nazim did not want to marry, and because he was better and wiser than they, the Four Brothers made him their king. The giant's daughters made their jewels into a crown for him, but no jewel was as bright as the star in his forehead, which outshone them all.
elephants
A design
A flower
A prince and a tiger
"You have broken my enchantment"
East Indian Fairy Tales
A Prince is changed into a fish by his cruel mother. Theenchantment is broken by the aid of a seven-headed cobra, and all ends well.
ONCE there were a king and queen who had two sons. The older of the two was a very short and ugly man with only one eye, and that was in the middle of his forehead. His brother was tall and handsome and carried himself like a prince.
Naturally the king preferred his handsome son and wished to make him his heir. "My people will never obey a dwarf with only one eye," he said.
This made Deesa, the older son, very angry. "The kingdom ought to be mine," he said, "or if I cannot have it all it should be divided."
"The kingdom ought to be mine"
He said this to his wife, whose name was Matni, and as she was an enchantress she determined to get the whole of the kingdom for her husband if possible. She thought it all over and then invited the younger brother to a banquet in that part of the palace where she lived.
Then she said to her husband, "After supper you must sit with your brother on the balcony overlooking the river. I will change him into a fish and then you can throw him into the water. In this way we shall hear no more of him."
Threw some powder on his head
Deesa agreed to this, and after supper invited his brother to sit with him on the balcony. Then Matni went up on the roof of the palace and threw down some powder on the younger Prince's head. Just as soon as she did this, the Prince was changed into a little fish, and his brother picked him up and threw him into the river.
All this was done so suddenly that the Prince hardly knew what had happened to him. Over and over he turned before he struck the water, but when it had closed over him he found that he had been changed into a fish and could swim very nicely underneath the water.
He was caught in a net
He seemed to know, too, that Matni had enchanted him, and he wanted to get out of her way; so he swam on and on until at the end of two days he was outside of his father's kingdom.
Then one day he was caught in a net by some fishermen and taken to the palace of the king of that country to be served up for dinner. He was not very big, and one of the servants thought it would be much nicer to have him in a bowl than to cook him.
The Queen became fond of him
So the servant begged for the little fish. "I will take it to the Queen's room," she said. "She has no children and is sometimes very dull. This little fish may amuse her."
The Queen was very much pleased with the pretty little fish and became very fond of him. When he grew to be too large for the bowl, she had another one prepared for him, and fed him boiled rice twice every day. "He is such a dear," she said, "that he shall be called Athon-Rajah, the Fish Prince."
After awhile the Fish Prince grew so big that the Queen had a tank made for him through which the clear water of the river flowed in and out.
Then one day the Queen feared that the Fish Prince was not comfortable in his tank and would prefer to be in the beautiful shining river which flowed past her windows. So she said to him one day, "Are you quite happy here, Athon-Rajah?"
After a moment's thought the Fish Prince replied, "I am quite happy here, dear Queen-mother, but if you could get me a nice little wife I should be happier. It is really quite lonely here all by myself."
Now the Queen looked upon the Fish Prince as her own son, and never imagined that any girl would have the least objection to marrying him. So she said, "If you want a wife I can easily find one for you."
"I will find you a wife at once!"
"But would you not like to go and swim in the river?" she went on.
"Certainly not," replied the Fish Prince. "All I want is to have a nice little wife and live right here." The answer astonished the Queen, but then she did not know that he was a fish only in appearance.
"All right," she said. "I will find you a wife at once, and have a room built in the tank for her." She had the room built at once, but it was not an easy matter to find a wife for the Fish Prince!
Everybody knew that Athon-Rajah was a pet of the Queen's, but for all that, they said he was a monster of a fish, and that all he wanted of a wife was to devour her. But the Queen sent messengers far and wide, among the rich and the poor alike, but found no one who was willing to give his daughter as a wife to the Fish Prince.
Even the people who had eight or ten daughters were very polite about it, but said, "We cannot give one of our children to your Fish Prince." Then the Queen offered a great bag of gold to any father who would send his daughter to be the Fish Prince's wife, but nothing came of it for a long time.
At last a fakir or beggar-man heard of the bag of gold and said to the messenger, "You may have my eldest daughter. She cannot be worse off than where she is now, and the gold will make me rich."
"You can take her and welcome"
"Tell me where she is?" asked the Queen's messenger.
"She is down by the river, washing," said the man. "She is my first wife's child, and her stepmother makes her do all the hard work, and will not give her enough to eat."
"She gets more than she deserves," cried the stepmother angrily. "Much more than she deserves. You can take her and welcome. We shall be well rid of her, and if the Fish Prince wants to eat her, he can do so."
The cobra put out his seven heads
So the messenger gave the bag of gold to the fakir, and went down to the river, where he found a very pretty girl washing clothes on the edge of the water. She cried very much when she heard what his errand was, and begged him to let her say good-bye to an old friend before he took her away.
"I want to see my wife!"
"Tell me who is this friend," said the messenger. "The Queen said we were to lose no time." And the girl replied, "It is a seven-headed cobra whom I have known ever since I was a little child."
Still crying, the girl, whose name was Maya, ran along the bank, and the cobra put his seven heads out of the hole where he lived.
"I know all about it," he said. "Don't cry. Pick up those three pebbles outside my hole and put them in your dress. When you see the Athon-Rajah coming, throw the first at him. If it hits him he will sink to the bottom of the tank."
Then the cobra went on. "When he rises to the surface, hit him with the second, and the same thing will happen. Throw the third pebble at him, and he will change from a fish into a handsome young prince."
"Then he isn't really a fish?" asked Maya.
"He is the son of a Rajah and is under an enchantment," replied the cobra. "But you can break the enchantment in the way I have told you."
So Maya dried her tears and went away with the messenger to the palace, where they showed her a beautiful little room that had been prepared for her inside the tank where the Fish Prince lived. Then the Queen kissed her and said, "You are just the dear little wife I want for my Athon-Rajah."
Maya would have been quite happy, for every one was very kind to her, if it had not been for the thought of the cold dark water, and her fear that she might not be able to hit the Fish Prince with the pebbles. But she let them put her into the little room, where she sat down and waited for a long time, with the pebbles in her hand.
Changed into a handsome prince
Then there was a sound of rushing water and of waves dashing against the door. She looked out and there was a huge fish swimming towards her with his mouth wide open!
"I want to see my wife!" cried the Fish Prince. "Unfasten the door!"
Trembling from head to foot with fright, Maya opened the door and threw the first pebble, which went right down his throat. He sunk like a stone, but in a minute or two came up to the surface again.
Then Maya threw the second pebble, which hit the Fish Prince on the head, and he sunk the second time.
Maya was so nervous that she nearly missed hitting him with the third pebble, for it only touched the tip of his fin. This time he did not sink, but changed into a handsome prince, who took her in his arms and kissed her tenderly.
"You have broken my enchantment!" he cried. "Now we can enjoy sunshine and happiness in the world above, and need not live in a tank any longer."
So they were drawn up out of the water and taken to the palace, where no one could possibly live happier than Maya and the Fish Prince.
An elephant
A flower
A design
"Two wild ducks are carrying a turtle!"
East Indian Fairy Tales
Relates the unique and satisfactory end of a turtle who mademischief among the cranes, fishes, parrots andmonkeys. The moral is obvious.
AGREAT many years ago there was a king who talked too much. His name was Badahur, and from his beautiful palace he ruled many millions of people.
There was also a turtle who was even fonder of talking than the King, and he lived in a pond in the King's garden.
But for all the King was so great and so rich, his people did not respect him because he talked and talked about everything under the sun. He had a sort of prime-minister whose name was Hazar, and he was expected to say foolish things, of course, but the King seemed to want to say them all.
When the King drove through the streets in his golden chariot with footmen running before and behind, even the beggars by the roadside would say, "There goes one who cannot hold his tongue."
"Don't tell your secrets to Badahur," they would go on. "He says more foolish things in a day than Hazar will ever say in his life. He talks and talks, and no one else has a chance to speak where he is."
All this used to trouble Hazar, for he knew what the people thought of their king. He used to lie awake at night thinking how he could cure the King of his talkativeness, but he could settle upon no plan, for the more he thought the more difficult the matter seemed.
But the turtle was even worse than the King in the matter of talking. He talked to the fishes, the parrots, the monkeys, and the birds all day long, until they were tired of the very sound of his voice.
"Tells the cranes where our hiding-places are"
The fishes, as they lay under the bank used to say to each other, "He is a mischief-maker. He tells the cranes where our hiding-places are, and then they drag us out with their long bills and eat us."
He told Mirbah, the King-parrot, what the monkeys said about his tail, and that started such a quarrel between the parrots and the monkeys that it never will be patched up.
"When the King takes the court away to the summer palace, let us hope that some one will invite the turtle to make a long visit elsewhere," said the humming-birds. "He is a horrid gossip, even worse than Hazar."
By and by the hot days came and the King and his court went to their beautiful summer palace away up on the slopes of the mountains. No one asked the turtle to go anywhere and he was left in the pond.
One day Hazar, who had stayed in the city to finish up some business before joining the King, was walking in the garden near the pond and saw two wild ducks alight on the ground near where the turtle was basking in the sun.
As soon as the turtle saw the ducks he began to talk to them. "Where are you going?" he asked.
"There is a place called the Golden Cave up in the mountains where we used to live, and we are going back there," replied the wild ducks.
"I should think that would be a very nice place," said the turtle. "Is there a pond in the Golden Cave?"
"Where are you going?" he asked
"No. But we have lakes and rivers, plenty of them, and they are very much better than such a pond as you have here. If you will come with us you can see for yourself."
Something of this kind was just what the turtle wished, for he was tired of living in the pond in the King's garden. His tongue had made him so many enemies that things were unpleasant for him there.
"But I do not see how I can go with you to the Golden Cave," he said to the wild ducks. "If I could fly it would be an easy thing to do."
"If you would like to go, we will take you," said the ducks. "We will take the two ends of a stick in our bills, and you can hold on to the middle by your mouth. Just don't let go of it, and you will be all right."
"Oh, that will be easy for me to do," replied the turtle.
"Indeed it won't," said Hazar to himself from behind the trees, where he was watching the ducks and the turtle; "you would have to hold your tongue, and that is something you could never do since you were born."
Hazar finished up the business he had on hand and then joined the King in his summer palace up in the hills and as soon as they found a stick which would bear the weight of the turtle, the ducks flew up into the air with the turtle between them.
How the fishes did laugh as they looked at the turtle hanging from the stick by his mouth. "Don't come back again, Talking Turtle," they called after him. "We can get along very well without you."
Hanging from the stick by his mouth
"I don't intend to come back! Keep your old pond to yourselves!" was what the turtle wanted to say in reply, but he did not dare to, because if he opened his mouth to speak he would tumble right back into the pond again.
So they flew on and on over the cities and villages and fields, and every time they stopped, the ducks cautioned the turtle to hold his tongue or he would be killed.
Then one day as they were flying over a field, a woman who was working there called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a turtle along on a stick!"
This made the turtle so angry that he wanted to say, "You miserable woman, what is it to you?" but he controlled himself, although he bit the stick half way through in his rage.
After a while the ducks and the turtle came to the mountains and flew directly over King Badahur's summer palace. Some boys in the town below threw sticks at the ducks and called out to them, "Drop that fat old turtle. We'll make soup of him!"
This made the turtle so angry that he could no longer keep silence. He started to say, "Soup! You shall be made into soup yourselves, miserable children," but as he opened his mouth to utter the first word, he let go of the stick and crashed down into the courtyard of the palace, where the King and a number of his courtiers were walking. Hazar ran to pick him up, but he was quite dead!
Hazar ran to pick him up
"What do you think of this?" asked the King of Hazar. "Did the turtle drop from the sky as a warning to us?"
"He was being carried through the air by two wild ducks," replied Hazar. "With your Majesty's permission I will tell you what I know about him." And then he told the King what he had heard and seen in the palace garden.
After Hazar had finished his story, the King was silent for a long time and then he said, "This disaster happened to the turtle because he could not hold his tongue."
Hazar bowed and the King was silent again. "It strikes me, Hazar," he said at last, "that at times I talk too much."
All the courtiers looked at Hazar, expecting him to deny that the King could talk too much, or to say that it was a pleasure to listen to anything the King had to say, but Hazar did nothing of the kind. He quietly said, as he looked the King straight in the face, "Happy is the kingdom where the king knows his own faults!"
A golden turtle was set up in the palace
"Happy is the king who has such a faithful counsellor as yourself, Hazar," responded the King. "To remind us of the fate of this turtle, we will have a golden one set up in the palace."
So a golden turtle was made and set up in one of the great halls of the palace, and whenever the King saw it he was reminded of the fate of the talkative turtle. He learned wisdom and discretion and how to keep silent when it was necessary, and instead of despising him, his subjects came to love and respect him.
A design