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.

When they had departed Lita recovered his own form and went to the muni with the bel fruit and asked what more was to be done in order to find the princess.  The muni said that the princess was inside the fruit; that Lita was to take it to a certain well and very gently break it open against the edge of the well.  Lita hurried off to the well and in his anxiety to see the princess he knocked the fruit with all his force and split it suddenly in two.  The result of this was that the princess burst out of the fruit in such a blaze of light that Lita fell down dead.  When the princess saw that her brightness had killed her lover she was very distressed and taking his body on her lap she wept over him.  While she was doing so a girl of the Kamar caste came by and asked what was the matter.  The princess said:  “My lover is dead, if you will draw water from the well I will revive him by giving him to drink,” but the Kamar girl at once formed a wicked plan.  She said that she could not reach the water in the well.  Then said the princess:  “Do you hold this dead body while I draw the water.”  “No,” said the Kamar girl, “I see you mean to run away leaving me with the dead body and I shall get into trouble.”  Then said the princess:  “If you do not believe me take off my fine clothes and keep them as a pledge.”  Then the princess let the Kamar girl take off all her jewellery and her beautiful dress and went to draw water from the well.  But the Kamar girl followed her and as the princess leant over the edge she pushed her in, so that she was drowned.  Then the Kamar girl drew water from the well and went back to Lita and poured some into his mouth, and directly the water touched his lips he came back to life, and as the Kamar girl had put on the dress and jewellery of the Belbati princess he thought that she was the bride for whom he had sought.  So he took her home to his brothers’ house and married her.

After a time Lita and his brothers went to hunt in the jungle; it was very hot and Lita grew very thirsty; he found himself near the well at which he had broken the bel fruit and went to it for water.  Looking down he saw floating on the water a beautiful flower; he was so pleased with it that he picked it and took it home to his Kamar wife; but when she saw it she was very displeased and cut it up into pieces and threw the pieces out of the house.  Lita was sorry and noticed shortly afterwards that at the place where the pieces of the flower had been thrown a small bel tree was sprouting.  He had this planted in his garden and carefully watered.  It grew well and after a time it produced ripe fruit.  One day Lita ordered his horse, and as it was being brought it broke loose and run away into the garden:  as it ran under the bel tree one of the bel fruits fell on to the saddle and stayed there.  When the syce caught the horse he saw this and took the fruit home with him.  When he went to cut open

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