Folklore of the Santal Parganas eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 578 pages of information about Folklore of the Santal Parganas.

Folklore of the Santal Parganas eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 578 pages of information about Folklore of the Santal Parganas.

At this the Jogi grew wrathful and said that if the away he would kill him, so the boy at this ran away in terror, and the Jogi became a leopard and pursued him:  then the boy turned himself into a pigeon and the Jogi became a hawk and pursued him; so the boy turned himself into a fly and the Jogi became a paddy bird and pursued him; the fly alighted on the plate of a Rani who was eating rice, and the Jogi took on his natural shape and told the Rani to scatter the rice which she was eating on the ground and she did so; but the boy turned himself into a bead of coral on the necklace which the Rani was wearing; and the Jogi did not notice this but became a pigeon and ate up the rice which the Rani had thrown down.  When he did not find the boy among the rice he turned himself into a Jogi again and saw him in the necklace; then he told the Rani to break her necklace and scatter the beads on the ground and she did so; then the Jogi again became a pigeon and began to pick up the beads, but the boy turned himself into a cat and hid under the verandah and when the pigeon came near, he pounced on it and killed it, and ran outside with it.  Then he became a boy again and twisted off the bird’s head and wrapped it in his cloth and went off home; and looking behind he saw the Jogi’s head come rolling after him, so when he came to a blacksmith’s fire by the side of the road he threw the pigeon’s head into it, and then the Jogi’s head also ran into the fire and was consumed.

And the boy went home to his parents.

XXXVII.  The Charitable Jogi.

Once there was a very poor man with a large family; and when his eldest son grew up he tried to arrange a marriage for him.  He selected a bride and arranged matters with her relations but then he found that he had no money to pay for the performance of the marriage ceremonies.  So he tried to borrow from his friends and from money lenders, but no one would lend him anything.  So he proposed to the bride’s relatives to only have the betrothal that year and the marriage the year after, but they would not agree and said that the marriage must be then or never.

Just then a Jogi came to his house to beg and he told the Jogi all about his difficulties and asked for help; the Jogi took pity on him and gave him twenty rupees which was all that he had collected by begging.

Now this Jogi had two wives at home and he thought that he would get a poor reception from them if he returned empty handed, so he picked up two stones and wrapped them up in two pieces of cloth.  And when he reached home his wives welcomed him and brought out a bed for him to sit on and asked about his adventures and when they saw the bundles they wished to know what was inside and they opened them before him and behold the stones had turned into gold.  When the Jogi saw this he wished that he had picked up three or four stones instead of only two and he understood that Chando had given him the gold because he helped the poor man.

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Folklore of the Santal Parganas from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.