Reading Notes: Folktales of Bengal, Part A

Cover illustration for the folktale The Evil Eye of Sani by
Warwick Goble. Source: Wikisource.

• The Evil Eye of Sani (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• Sani (Saturn, god of bad luck) and Lakshmi (goddess of good luck) got into an argument about who held a higher rank and decided to let a human with good judgement settle it
• Sribatsa, a rich and wise man, was chosen to settle the argument
• He was worried about choosing a side because whoever ended up in the lower rank would spite him, so he decided to let them form an opinion based on his actions rather than his words
• Sribatsa made two stools, one of gold and one of silver, and told Sani to sit on the silver one and Lakshmi to sit on the gold one, which upset Sani and led him to "cast his eye" on Sribatsa for three years
• As Sani left, Lakshmi reassured Sribatsa that she would watch out for him
• Sribatsa told his wife he would leave so that she would not be affected by Sani's eye, but his wife told him she would stay by his side
• As the couple packed all their riches in a mattress and prepared to leave, Sribatsa called upon Lakshmi to watch over their house while they were gone, and Lakshmi agreed that she would
• As the couple set out with their mattress, they came across an impassable river with a man in a canoe near the shore
• They asked him to help them cross, but he said he could only take one at a time and the mattress must go first (he considered it a person)
• When the man and their mattress reached the halfway point across the river, a large wave overtook them and washed them away as the river dried up and became firm ground
• Without any money, the couple settled in a village of wood-cutters and Sribatsa joined them, cutting special sandal-wood and selling it for more than common wood that others were selling
• This made the other wood-cutters jealous, so they drove the couple out of their village
• The couple then settled in a village of cotton-spinners where Chintamani, Sribatsa's wife, became the best and made the most money
• This made the other cotton-spinner jealous, but to avoid being driven away, Sribatsa invited the village to a feast prepared by his wife
• The food was so good that the husbands all ridiculed their wives for not being able to cook as good as Chintamani, making them hate her more
• An abandoned boat in the river where the women bathed could not be moved for days until Chintamani accidentally touched it one morning and set it free
• Boatmen of the village believed her to have special powers and decided to take her on their journey as no other woman objected
• Sribatsa heard of his wife being taken and decided to follow the river until he found her, but to no avail on the first night, so he slept in a tree
• The next morning, a Kapila-cow (one which produces milk all day, but never calves) was at the foot of the tree, so Sribatsa drank plenty of milk and noticed its droppings were gold
• He decided to stay here as the cow came to visit him morning and night and he could drink its milk and collect its gold
• Chintamani was very pretty and was being harassed by the boatmen constantly, so she asked Lakshmi to make her ugly in hopes that the men would leave her alone
• She was turned ugly and disease-ridden, so the men threw her into the boat's hold where she then lived, getting rice and water morning and night
• The boatmen, on returning from selling cargo at a port, noticed Sribatsa's collection of gold and went to it, taking him captive and stealing his gold
• The couple was reunited and recognized each other, but did not speak for their safety, rather communicating by gestures
• The men liked playing dice, but Sribatsa was good and always beat them, so they threw him overboard and he floated until he stopped at a garden along the bank
• The garden happened to be the ex-flower-supplier to the King's, who stopped when her plants stopped blooming, but started again when Sribatsa appeared, so she took care of him and was able to supply flowers again
• Sribatsa followed her to the palace and was given the job of river toll-gatherer, where he eventually saw the boat his wife was on, charged them of theft, and detained them
• The King came to see the gold bars that were stolen and saw they were inscribed to Sribatsa, and Chintamani escaped the boat, becoming beautiful again
• The King sent them to their own country with horses and elephants and Sani's evil eye was turned away from him again
• The Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled (Part 1, Part 2)
• Introduces a king with seven barren queens who is told that a special tree in a forest has seven mangoes which will make the queens mothers, so he goes to pick them, then gives them to each queen and they soon become pregnant
• While hunting, he sees a Rakshasi, falls in love with her, and marries her without knowing who she really is
• She asked him one day to prove if he truly loved her more than anyone by blinding his seven queens and letting them die, so he took their eyes, but the chief minister hid them in a cave so they wouldn't have to die
• The first child was born, but they were blind and hungry, so they ate it (except for the seventh queen who set her share aside), and the rest did the same as they birthed their children
• The seventh queen, however, kept her baby and gave the portions that she set aside to the rest to eat, but they knew they were not fresh, so the queen told them she was keeping her child
• The rest were happy about this and helped her raise it, allowing it to grow big and strong
• The Rakshasi was ruining the royal house the whole time due to her never getting full from the food served, so she ended up eating everyone and occasionally went into the public and ate a random person, leaving the king to himself without protection or food
• The boy raised by the seven queens vowed to protect the king from the Rakshasi by staying overnight when she fed, so she decided to figure out a way to get rid of him
• Rakshasi claimed that she had some disease only curable by a specific melon that had to be fed to her by her mother, so she sent the boy to get her from across the ocean
• The letter she sent with the boy told her mother to eat him as soon as he arrived, so he suspected something was off, tore up the letter, and set out anyway
• He reached the land of Rakshasis and found her mother, telling her about her daughter's illness, so the mother took him on her back and brought him to her land to give him the specific melon and told him to get it to her
• The boy claimed fatigue and asked to rest a day, so he did
• While resting, the boy saw a club and rope and a bird in a cage in the Rakshasi's room, so he asked about them
• The club and rope got her across the ocean and the bird held her daughter's life (which she believed to be the boy's mother)
• The next day, when the Rakshasis were out foraging, the boy took the bird and crossed the ocean with the club and rope to give the queen her melon while hiding the bird
• Over time, more people were killed by the queen until citizens complained to the king of a monstrous bird, which he knew nothing about
• The boy claimed he knew and could kill it as long as the queen stood next to the king, so he showed him that the bird held the queen's life by pulling a leg off (which pulled her leg off) and choking it (which forced her to release the ghost)
• The boy then told the king who he was, the seven queens were brought back to the palace with their eyesight restored, and they all lived together
• The Origin of Opium (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• A Rishi is introduced as living along the banks of the holy Ganga in a hand-made hut with a mouse who lives of his dinner scraps
• The Rishi gives the mouse the ability to talk so that he can have a friend
• One night, the mouse tells the Rishi that whenever he leaves, cats try to hunt him, so he asks to be turned into a cat
• Once he is a cat, he wants to be a dog, then an ape, then a boar, then an elephant
• One day while roaming, the elephant is captured and brought to a king's palace to be tamed
• Soon, the queen wishes to bathe in the waters of the holy Ganga, so she and the king hop on the elephant to get there, but the elephant refuses to be "degraded" by letting a woman sit on his back, so he bucks them off and runs away into the forest
• Before he gets too far, he sees the king help his queen up, dust her off, and kiss her, so when he gets back to the Rishi, he asks to be made a queen
• The Rishi laughs, saying that he can make him a beautiful woman, but he would have to meet a prince and become a queen himself, so the elephant agrees and become a beautiful young woman named Postomani, or the poppy-seed lady
• Soon, on a day the Rishi was gone, Postomani spots a well-dressed man walking through the forest and invites him into the hut for water
• Postomani makes up a story about her life, saying that she was born royalty and is in the Kshatriyas caste, so they get together and marry
• She was so happy, but shortly after fell into a well and died
• To help him grieve, the Rishi explains to the king that she was not of royalty, but born a mouse and only transformed by his hand
• For himself, the Rishi makes her name immortal by keeping her body in the well, filling it with dirt, then letting a tree grow out from her to produce poppy seeds
• He explains that this Poppy tree will then be used to make opium, which makes the smoker of it take on a single quality of each animal Postomani was transformed into
• The Ghost-Brahman (Link)
• Poor Brahman wanted to marry his woman, but could not afford to pay her parents, so he asked for help from rich people and eventually pulled together enough
• He brought his future wife to his mother and got her blessing, so he set out on adventure, but while he was gone, a ghost who took his appearance showed up in his house
• He basically took over the Brahman's life and a few years later he returned from his journey
• The ghost confronted the Brahman, asking what he was doing there, and the Brahman returned the questions, but was driven away and had no response but to go to the king
• He returned day after day, but the king never knew what to do because he could not tell the difference between them, so the Brahman left distraught and passed a group of cowboys who played for royalty
• The king of the group ordered the Brahman be brought to them to figure out what his problem was, and once they did the group's king said to go to the actual king and ask permission for him to decide his case
• The actual king granted permission and the trial was the next morning, so the group king brought a vial with a narrow neck and said whoever can enter it will be the rightful owner of the home
• The Brahman refused as it would've been impossible, but the ghost could easily fit into it, so once he did, the king corked it so it could not get back out
• The Brahman then dropped the vial into the bottom of the sea and took over his home, wife, and mother and lived happily ever after