were about to do she could win love for herself, she at once thought that in this way she, too, might win the love of her father-in-law.  So she told the serpent-maidens of Patala and the wood-nymphs that she would go with them.  They went deeper and deeper into the forest until at last they came to a temple of the god Shiva.  There the serpent-maidens and the wood-nymphs offered to the god rice, betel-nut, incense, flowers, and the leaves of the bel tree.  The ugly little daughter-in-law did just as they did.  And when she had finished she cried out, “O God Shiva, please, please vouchsafe my prayer also, and make my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, my brothers-in-law and my sisters-in-law like me as much as they now dislike me.”  That evening she went home and fasted, and all the scraps which they threw to her from the king’s table she gave to her favourite cow.  And then she sat by herself and prayed to the god Shiva.  The following Monday she once more ran out of the palace and out of the town and into the woods as fast as her fat little legs would carry her.  There she met again the serpent-maidens of Patala and the bevy of wood-nymphs and went with them to the temple of Shiva in the distant heart of the forest.  The first time the serpent-maidens and the wood-nymphs had given her the incense and the flowers, the rice and the betel-nut, and the leaves of the bel tree, with which to perform her worship.  But they had told her that the next time she must bring them herself.  So when she ran away on the second Monday in Shravan she brought with her incense and flowers, rice and betel-nut and bel-tree leaves, and after offering them and some sesamums to the god she once more prayed, “O God Shiva, please, please grant my prayer and make my father-in-law and my mother-in-law, my brothers-in-law and my sisters-in-law like me as much as they now dislike me.”  Then she went home and fasted, and giving all her dinner to her favourite cow she sat by herself and prayed to Shiva.  That evening the king asked her who the god was whom she was honouring, and where he lived.  The ugly little daughter-in-law replied, “Afar off my god lives, and the roads to him are hard, and the paths to him are full of thorns.  Where snakes abound and where tigers lie in wait, there is his temple.”  The third Monday in Shravan, the ugly little daughter-in-law again started from the palace with her flowers and incense, her betel-nut and bel leaves, her rice and sesamum, in order to meet the serpent-maidens of Patala and the bevy of wood-nymphs, and with them to worship the god in the hidden depths of the forest.  This time the king and her other male relatives followed her and said to her, “Ugly little daughter-in-law, take us with you and show us your god.”  But the temple of Shiva was ever so far from the king’s palace.  The ugly daughter-in-law did not mind, for she was used to cruel treatment.  She had also walked to the temple twice before, and her feet had got as hard as two little stones.  But the