Reading Notes: Folktales of Bengal, Part B (Extra Credit Reading Notes)

Illustration from The Ghostly Wife by Warwick Goble. Source: Link.

• A Ghostly Wife (Link)
• A Brahman, his wife, and his mother live together in a house nearby a tank which is haunted by a Sankchinni (ghost)
• The wife went to the tank one night and accidentally brushed the ghost, so the ghost attacked her and shoved her into the hole of a tree then took her clothes and went to the Brahman's house where he and his mother thought she was the wife
• The next morning, the mother noticed she was suddenly good at house work since normally she was weak and slow but didn't say anything and eventually it became normal for the "wife" to complete any task very quickly
• The mother soon notices the ghost doing things like stretching her arm to grab objects in the other room or setting a fire with her foot, so she tells her son and they decide she is a ghost
• The Brahman and his mother call an Ojha (exorcist) over and he gets her to confess what she did to the wife and take them to her in the tree so they could save her, then she also agrees not to bother the Brahman's family again
• The Story of a Brahmadaitya (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
• A poor Brahman with his wife begs people for food in a village which gets a new owner
• The Brahman goes to pay him court and decides to ask for help from the laird, but at that time the laird is asking about his servants and overhears that there's a haunted banyan-tree on the outskirts of his property where men had gone and died
• The laird said then that if any man could go to the tree at night, cut a branch, and bring it to him, the man would get 30 acres of land, so the Brahman agreed to it
• Once the Brahman got to the tree, he encountered a Brahmadaitya haunting a vakula-tree who asked if she could help him
• The Brahman says he wishes to get to the banyan tree to cut a branch for his rent-free land, so the Brahmadaitya agrees to go with him
• Since ghosts fear her so much, the Brahman was able to cut the branch while she protected him from the many ghosts who wished to hurt him and eventually the ghosts cut the branch off for him
• The Brahman returned the branch to the laird quickly, but the laird said he must check the next day whether it was truly from the haunted banyan or not, and he discovered it was, so the Brahman got his reward
• He quickly discovered that although he had a large harvest, he did not have the tools to reap it, so he went to the Brahmadaitya and asked for help again
• She said that he must borrow 100 sickles from village-men, place them at the foot of her tree, and prepare a place for grain and straw to be stored
• The Brahman did so, and that night she commanded 100 ghosts to do all the work for him, and they did
• The next morning, the Brahman, his wife, and all the villagers were taken aback by granary and ricks of straw placed overnight, so they believe it was a god's doing
• As a thank you, the Brahman went to the Brahmadaitya and asked for help in feeding 1,000 other Brahmans, so she agreed and asked for a place where she could put provisions for him to do so
• All the Brahman were able to eat, but the host did not participate, as he wished to eat with the Brahmadaitya, but she told him that by befriending him, she was able to rise into the heavens, so she did and the Brahman lived wonderfully
• The Origin of Rubies (Part 1, Part 2)
• A king dies and leaves four sons and a wife behind
• The wife favors the youngest son, which makes the other three sons jealous, so they force them to live in another home while they take over the estate
• The young son refuses to listen to anyone, so one day when he and his mother go to the river to bathe, he climbs onto a ship without boatmen, saying he's meant to go on a voyage
• The mother tells him to get down since it is not his boat, but he doesn't, so she rushes to the boat to get him down herself, but as soon as she boards the boat, he gets the anchor up and they begin to sail away
• After a while, they reach a whirlpool in the sea with large rubies swirling around it, so the son grabs up some of them, but the mother tells him to put them back because they are not his, so he eventually throws all but one back and the boat drifts to a port within the capital of a king
• The two find a hut to live in near the palace where the king's children play, so the son plays with them and uses his stolen ruby
• The king's daughter notices the son playing with the ruby and tells her dad, who has the boy brought to him with his ruby
• The king offers money to the boy for his ruby, so the boy takes it and brings it to his mother to let her know what happened
• The king's daughter proceeds to put the ruby in her hair and asks her parrot if she looks beautiful, which the parrot makes fun of her for, saying that it looks dumb to only have one, so she goes to the grief-chamber
• The king hears of this and asks what's wrong, so the daughter tells him that she needs another ruby like that one or else she'll kill herself, so the king asks the young son to get more and agrees to pay him
• The son sets out and once he gets to the whirlpool, he dives down to the bottom where the rubies are coming from in a palace
• The boy walks in a sees the god Siva in meditation with a decapitated body of a woman on a platform above him
• He notices a stream of blood coming from her neck which runs into the ocean and forms the rubies
• The boy then tries to pick up a gold and silver rod, but drops one of the severed head and wakes up the lady who reattaches her head and gets up
• After hearing why the boy was there, she tells him to leave or else Siva would kill him, but he refused unless she goes with him
• She eventually agrees and they sail away back to the son's home with a cargo of rubies
• The king's daughter, after seeing the rubies he brought her, wanted to marry the son even though he was already married to the lady from the sea, so he had two wives and lived wonderfully
• The Ghost who was Afraid of Being Bagged (Link)
• Introduces a barber with an unhappy wife who complains about not having enough to eat, eventually getting so angry that she hits him with a broom
• The barber was shameful and decided to leave the house until he was rich enough to provide for his wife
• He traveled through many villages until that night he settles on the edge of a forest near a haunted tree
• The ghost there wanted to destroy the barber at first and asks who will protect him, but the barber responds saying that he has caught ghosts in his jar before and has no problem catching him as well, which scared the ghost and brought him to agree to do anything for the man as long as he doesn't capture him
• The man tells the ghost to bring him 1,000 gold mohurs and to raise a granary with paddy next to his house, so the ghost agrees
• The next day, the man brings his riches home to his wife while the ghost continues working on his granary
• The ghost's uncle sees his nephew working and asks what he's doing, so the ghost tells him and the uncle calls him a fool, knowing that the barber can't harm him, but the ghost brings him to the barber
• The barber threatens the uncle ghost with the same fate, which scares it, so it also agrees to raise a granary with rice
• The barber becomes rich and lives happily with his wife, sons, and daughters
• The Bald Wife (Link)
• Introduces a man with two wives, who favors his younger wife who has two tufts of hair rather than just one like his older wife
• The young wife treats the older wife awfully and one day tells her to get ride of the lice in her hair
• As she is doing so, she pulls the tuft of hair out of the older wife's head and tells her to leave
• As the old wife heads into the forest, prepared to die, she stops by a cotton plant and sweeps the ground around it with a broom she makes from sticks, and to thank her, the plant gives her a blessing
• She does the same and receives a blessing from a plantain tree, a Brahmani bull, and tulasi plant
• Eventually she stops at a hut where a meditating man is sitting nearby who asks her what she wants, so she tells him of her troubles and asks for pity
• The man tells her to go into a tank once then come back, so she does, and when she exits the tank she has a full head of hair that went to her heels and her body looked young and beautiful again
• She bows to the man who then tells her to go inside and pick a wicker basket, which when she opens is filled with gold, pearls, and precious stones, and the man tells her that it will never empty
• On her way back home, the tulasi plant tells her that her husband will love her warmly, the Brahmani bull gives her two shell ornaments to wear on her wrist to get whatever ornaments she wants when they shake, the plantain tree gives her one of its leaves to provide her food whenever it's moved, and the cotton plant gave her one of its branches to provide her any cotton or silk clothes
• Once back home, the older wife decided to treat the younger wife with kindness, but the younger wife was now jealous
• Since she heard she got all her stuff from the man, Father Muni, in the forest, the young wife left to do the same, but did not stop to help any of the plants or bull along the way
• Once at the man's hut, he told her to go into the tank once, so she did and received a full head of hair and beautiful complexion, but she dipped again thinking it would make her even more beautiful
• It didn't work and she came out ugly and bald as she was before, so she went to the man to complain, but he drove her away due to her disobedience
• The young wife returned home angry, and when the husband returned, he fell in love with his older wife and they made the younger wife their maid-servant