The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead

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The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead
Folk-tales of Bengal 360.jpg
The boy with the moon on his forehead. Illustration by Warwick Goble for Folk-Tales of Bengal by Lal Behari Dey (1912).
Folk tale
NameThe Boy with the Moon on his Forehead
Data
Aarne–Thompson groupingATU 707 (The Three Golden Children; The Three Golden Sons)
RegionBengal; India
Related

The Boy with a Moon on his Forehead is a Bengali folktale collected by Maive Stokes and Lal Behari Day.

These tales are classified in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 707, "The Three Golden Children". These tales refer to stories where a girl promises a king she will bear a child or children with wonderful attributes, but her jealous relatives or the king's wives plot against the babies and their mother.[1]

Summary[]

Stokes's version[]

In Maive Stokes's version, later republished by folklorist Joseph Jacobs, titled The Boy who had a Moon on his Forehead and a Star on his Chin, a gardener's daughter says out loud, to her friends' mockery, that when she marries the will give birth to a boy with a moon on the forehead and a star on the chin. Her friends think she is only jesting, but her words draw the king's attention, who makes her his fifth cowife.

A year later, the king's other four queens convince the newly crowned one that the king may give her a kettle drum to inform the time of labour is approaching. The fifth queen sounds the kettle-drum three times to see if the king comes to her. He does on the first two occasions, but on the third he is absent, which creates a window of opportunity for the other queens to replace her son for a stone and deliver the baby to a nurse to kill him.

The nurse takes the boy in a box and buries it in the jungle, but the king's royal hound, named Shankar, goes to the hole and swallows the boy (but does not eat him). The dog takes the boy and rears him for a time. His master, the king's dogkeeper, sees the boy after the dog spits him out and marvels at the boy's beauty. The four queens learn that the boy is still alive and demand the dog to be killed come morning. The dog, however, saves the boy by giving him to the king's cow Suri, who swallows the boy in its belly.

The four queens once again learn of the boy's survival and order the cow to be sacrificed, but the boy is saved by the cow, who delivers him to the king's horse, Katar. The news of his survival reach the four queens' ears, who beg the king to sacrifice the horse. When a cadre of the king's sypoys surround the barn, the horse tells the prince to get some princely clothes, a bridle, a saddle, a sword and a gun from the stable, and ride it to escape execution.

The boy and Katar reach another country and exchange their clothes for common disguises, and the horse becomes a donkey. The prince with a moon takes up a job as a grain merchant's apprentice. On one hot day, the boy begins to sing to pass the time, and the local king's seventh daughter listens to the song. The princess goes to the royal garden, located neat the grain merchant's shop, and inquires the youth about his origins. He evades her questions. The princess insists on knowing about him, and this time he answers he is only a poor boy.

Some time later, the princess tells her father she wants to get married, and she must choose her husband. The king gathers a royal assemblage in the royal gardens, where the princess is to select her betrothed, and she chooses the grain merchant's apprentice. The princes and rajás protest her choice, but the king accepts his new son-in-law

After their marriage, the princess feels a bit saddened that her intended does not join with her sisters' husbands in hunting game around the palace. The prince consults with the magic horse Katar (shaped like a donkey), and they transform back into a gallant prince and a horse. The duo hunt birds and deers, and stop to rest under a tree. The other six brothers-in-law come and see him in the guise of the prince with a moon and a star, and beg him for food and drink. The prince agrees, so long as the six other men suffer a red-hot iron scar on their backs.

The prince returns to the palace in his true form, to everyone's surprise. He tells the truth to his wife, who accepts him as her husband. Some time later, the prince tells Katar he wants to return to his own country to check on his father and mother. The youth and the princess visit his father's kingdom.

After the couple arrive and pitch their tents, the king pays him a visit. The youth introduces himself as a foreign prince, who wants to hold a grand banquet for the king and the whole kingdom is to be invited. Everyone comes to the celebration, except his mother, the gardener's daughter. The youth insists she is to be present too at the event. The youth greets her as a queen, to the other queens's anger.

Some days after, the prince asks the king if he has any sons. The prince reveals the whole truth to his father, and shows him the magic horse Katar, who has helped the prince so far. The king asks his son to live with him in the palace, but he will only consent if his father kills the other four queens. The king does, and restores his former queen to her proper place.[2][3]

Day's version[]

In another Bengali folk tale collected by Lal Behari Dey in his Folk-Tales of Bengal with the title The Boy with the Moon on his forehead, a king has not yet fathered a son, even though he has six cowives. So he decides to marry a seventh queen. In his wanderings, he finds a cow-dung seller's beautiful daughter. In a conversation with other girls (daughter of the king's minister, daughter of a wealthy merchant, and the daughter of the royal priest), she tells them that to whoever marries her, she will bear him a boy and a girl (the girl "divinely fair"; the boy with "the moon on his forehead and stars on the palms of his hands).

The king decides to marry the girl who promises the wonder children, to her mother's surprise and to the anger and jealousy of the other six queens. The king gives her a bell and tells her he will be travelling for the next six months. The other queens convince the girl to ring the bell to prove that the king will return to her side. After three times, the king grows impatient and will not returns after a fourth ringing.

The six queens take the seventh queen and a midwife to a hut in the stables, replace the twins for puppies and give them to be disposed by the midwife. She puts both babies in an earthenware pot and takes the vessel to a poor potter's wheel, so that he burns all vessels clays the next morning along with the infants. However, the potter and his wife wake up the next morning and discover the clay vessels have been prepared overnight. The couple also find the twins "of unearthly beauty" and raises them as their own children.

After the potter and his wife die, the twin children move to the king's city. When they enter a bazaar, the whole place illminates all of a sudden. Fascinated by their beauty, the men at the bazaar promise to build a house for them, which they do. The boy hires a horse and hunts game in the nearby forests. One day, the king, also on a hunt, sees the mysterious boy. The youth shoots an arrow at a deer, but the force of the maneuver lets loose his turban, and the king can see his lunar birthmark.

The king returns to the six queens and tells them the incident, thinking about the son he might have had. The queens notice the youth is the boy they tried to kill in the past, and send the midwife to talk to both twins. The youth's sister is paid a visit by the midwife, who tells her her house need the kataki flower, guarded by 700 rakshasas.

The boy travels far across the ocean and finds a maiden named Pushpavati sleeping in a death-like state controlled by a golden and a silver baton. The maidens bids him to hide, as a rakshasa comes to wake up the girl. Pushpavati asks the demoness what may happen when she dies, and the creature answer that fate ordained that only the man with a moon on his forehead and stars on his palms can get a wooden box in a deep tank of water which contains the death of all rakshasas.

The boy follows the rakshasas instructions, gets the wooden box, crushes the two bees that were inside and kill the demons. He takes a bunch of kataki flowers to his sister, along with the maiden. They return home safe and sound. One day, the youth invites the king to his house, where the whole truth is revealed by Lady Pushpavati. The king buries the six queens in the ground and reinstates the twins' mother to her rightful place.[4]

Analysis[]

Tale type[]

Late 19-century and early 20th-century scholarship noted the great similarities between the Bengali tales and European fairy tales with a similar narrative. Scholar Francis Hindes Groome already saw a parallel between this tale with the Romani tale he collected, and Brothers Grimm's The Three Little Birds.[5]

In their commentaries to the Grimm's fairy tales, folklorists Johannes Bolte and Jiří Polívka listed the Indian tales as related to the German tale The Three Little Birds.[6]

According to Stith Thompson' and Jonas Balys's index of Indian tales, the tale type ATU 707 shows 44 variants across Indian sources.[7] Stuart Blackburn also studied Tamilian variants of the tale type, which he claimed was "one of the most frequently told Tamil tales".[8]

Folklorist Christine Goldberg, in the entry of the tale type in  [de], noted that in Indian variants of tale type 707, the children may entice their father to the truth by trying to feed a wooden horse. In others, the children die and are reborn as plants, and only their mother may pluck fruits or flowers from the trees.[9]

Other motifs[]

Dutch author Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje noted that the motif of the hero branding his brothers-in-law (or other suitors) also occurs in Indonesian literature, namely, in Banta Ali or Banta Peureudan ("Prince Ape"), and in the Hikayat Indra Bangsawan.[10]

Variants[]

Quest for objects[]

A similar tale is The Enchanted Bird, Music and Stream, recorded by , in Simla Village Tales, or Folk Tales from the Himalayas. In this variant, the young queen gives birth to three siblings (two boys and a girl) and the sisters' agent only mentions the quest items without any significant description.[11]

In a Bengali variant, Kiranmala or Kirunmala, or the Wreath of Light, the king wanders the streets at night to listen to his subjects' opinion of him, and stops by a house where three sisters are talking to one another: the first wanting to marry the feeder of the king's horses, the second to the royal cook, and the third to the king himself. The king brings them all to his presence the next day and marries the youngest. The new queen gives birth to two boys and a girl in three consecutive births, who are replaces by the sisters for a cur, a kitten and a doll. The children are thrown in the water in an earthen pot and saved by a brahmin. The brahmin names the boys Arun and Barun (Varun) and the girl Kirunmala.[a] After he dies, the siblings meet the king after a heavy storm on the road, and decide to build a palace. One day, a fakir passes by their palace, comliments their fine abode, but suggests the girl to send her brothers for "a silver tree with flowers of gold, a tree of diamonds with birds of gold perched on it; and a canopy of a net made of pearls".[b] In this tale, the water is only used to disenchant Kirunmala's petrified brothers, and one of the birds of gold convinces them to invite the king to a banquet.[14][15][16]

In a Gujarati variant collected by Putlibai Wadia with the title Súrya and Chandra, a disguised raja wanders about his kingdom and reaches a tree near a well, where a group of young women were talking. Two of them boast about their skills, and a third, from a Barhman family, says she is destined to bear the Sun and the Moon. The king, interested in fathering both luminaries, marries the girl as his fourth wife. The woman bears twins: the Sun, a "divinely handsome boy", and the Moon, a "bewitchingly lovely girl". The other wives replace them for a log of wood and a broom and cast them in the sea. The queen is imrisoned and the twins are saved by a poor devotee, who named the boy Súrya and the girl Chandra. Years later, the girl is convinced to send her brothers for the sandalwood tree that lies at the bottom of the well of Chandan Pari, and the world-renowned Pari of Unchhatra, who petrifies people. Súrya brings home the sandalwood tree, and marries both Chandan Pari and Unchhatra. Unchhatra is the one to arrange for the truth of their parentage to be discovered.[17]

In a variant from Rajasthan, The Pomegranate Princess, a childless king marries a seventh wife, a woman named Usha, to the jealousy of the other six queens. Now queen, Usha gives birth to a boy, a girl and another boy (as three consecutive births), but the jealous queens bribe the midwife to put rocks in their cribs and throw the children in the ocean. However, they are saved each time by a sadhu, who names them, respectively, Gokul, Kalama and Kalyan. Some time later, the sadhu dies, but leaves the children "the ashes of the fire", which are imbued with magic. The three decide to move from the sadhu's hut to the city, and Kamala, using the magic ashes, creates a fine mansion for them. The barber and the king's minister see Kamala and find a matchmaker. She takes a job as the sibling's housekeeper and tells the girl the house will be even more beautiful if one of her brothers finds a pomegranate that "shines like a bright star in a far away tree". Her brother Gokul uses the ashes on his horse, rides it to the tree and takes the pomegranate home. That night, the fruit cracks open and a princess comes out of it. The next time, the matchmaker convinces the sister to send her brothers for the golden bird. As usual, the brothers fail and are turned into stone, but their sister gets the bird and rescues them. Now back home, the golden bird convinces the siblings to invite the king, the queens and everyone for a banquet. The bird reveals the intrigue to the king, who orders for the former queen to be brought to his presence.[18]

Ethnologist Verrier Elwin collected a Baiga story from the Mandla district, titled The Brave Children: the fourth queen gives birth to a boy and a girl, but the three jealous co-wives of the king cast them in the water. They are found by a Sadhu, who gives them two sticks with a magical command. Years later, the jealous queens send the boy on a quest for a lotus flower and Pathari Kaniya (The Stone Maiden) as his wife.[19]

James Hinton Knowles collected three variants from Kashmir, grouped under the title "The Wicked Queens". In the first, the number of siblings is 4 (three boys, one girl), the third son is the hero and he goes on a quest for a bird that speaks and sings. In another, there is only one son who quests for a tree and its covering (lacking the quest for a magical water and a magical bird, from other variants).[20]

Cycle of reincarnations[]

Indian scholarship also suggests that the Southeast Asian folktale of Champa Si Ton ("Four Champa Trees") was inspired by Hindu literature. In this tale, the King of Panchala marries a second wife, Padma, who gives birth to four princes. The royal children are taken by the envious first queen, Angī. They are buried and become champa trees, but are saved by a sage named Agni Chaksu and given the names Sita Kumāra, Pita Kumāra, Suvarna Kumāra and Vajra Nanda Kumāra.[21]

Bengali folklorist Saratchandra Mitra published a tale from the Ho people, "of the wicked queens type": a raja is married to 7 ranis, but has not yet fathered a son. A bramahna tells him to take a stick and beat a tree for 7 mangoes and to give the fruits to his 7 wives. They eat the fruit, but the seventh eats a parly eaten fruit an gives birth to a "beautiful boy with the face of a mongoose". The other queens replace the boy for a stone and a broom, and later in the story his six half-brothers kill and bury him. A bamboo and a shrub with a beautiful flower sprout. The raja plucks the flower and cuts down the bamboo, and his son reappears.[22]

Indian ethnographer Sarat Chandra Roy collected and a published a tale from the Birhor people. In this tale, titled How the dead and buried children of the Raja were restored to life, a childless rajah is married to seven ranis, but has no son. A brahman advises him to strike a mango tree with his sword, get as many mangoes as he can and give to his seven wives. He does that, but manages to get one. Six of the ranis eat the fruit and leave the rind to the seventh. The ones that ate the fuirt bear no son, while the seventh becomes pregnant. The king gives her two drums to announce the child's birth: golden for a boy, silver for a girl. Sh gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who are replaced for a broom and a piece of burnt firewood. The twins are thrown in a pit and found by pot-makers, who raise them as their children. Years later, the six ranis notice that the children are alive and give them poisoned bread. The twins eat, die and buried by the potmakers in the jungle. From the boy's grave, a plantain tree sprouts and from the girl's a pinjār tree. One day, a king's woodsman tries to pluck a flower from the pinjar tree, but both it and the plaintain extend their trunks. The woodsman reports to the king, who goes to the trees and tries to pluck the flower. The same event happens. The king summons his six queens, who also fail to get the flower. The rajah summons the seventh queen, who tries to get the flower and both trees return to human form. The rajah learns of the co-wives' deceit and buries them alive in a hole.[23]

In another tale from the Ho people, published by Sukumar Haidar with the title The Trials of a Rani, a childless Raja with three wives is visited by a Brahman, who advises him to get a mango from a mango tree and give it to his three wives. Two of them eat the fruit, while the third rani eats the skin and the stone. The latter is the only one to bear a son to the king. The other two ranis, jealous of the luck of the other co-wive and replace the boy for a piece of wood, while dropping the boy in a clay pit next to a lake from where potters take clay from. The Raja sees the piece of wood and banishes his third queen. Meanwhile, the third queen's son crawls out of the pit and falls into the lake, becoming a lotus flower (Kamal-bā). The gardener's wife sees the lotus flowers and tries to get it, but it float away in the lake. Some time later, the ranis try to get the lotus, but the flower questions them about their misdeed. The Raja himself tries next, but the lotus flower floats away. Lastly, the banished queen goes to retrieve the flower. Jets of milk escape from her breasts and shoot at the flower, which moves closer and closer to the shore of the lake. The lotus flower turns back into a human boy and the Raja discovers the ruse.[24]

Riddle of the wooden horse[]

Verrier Elwin collected another tale from the Baiga with the title The Story of Lalpila: a childless king with six wives goes hunting in the woods and finds a emaciated-looking woman named "Queen of the Forest" atop a tree. The king and his retinue inquire about her nature: is she a devata, a rakshasa, a bhut, a Pret or human, like them? The woman climbs down the tree and eats a meal. The king takes her back to his palace and marries her. The other six queens become jealous. The Queen of the Forest is heavy with child and the king gives her a bell to ring to summon him. The Queen of the Forest gives birth to a boy that is replaced by a stone by the other queens and throws to the buffalloes to be trampled. The animals, however, suckle the child and the queens throw the boy in a goat-shed. A woman that grazes the goats finds the boy (which she identifies as "the Forest Queen son") and she and her husband adopt him. Years later, the boy, named Lal, commissions a wooden horse to be made. He takes the boy to the river where the six queens were bathing and orders the wooden horse to drink water. The six queens mock the boy's action and he retorts about a human woman giving birth to a stone. The six queens notice it is their rival's son and return in a stunned state to the palace. The king learns of this and orders the boy to be summoned to his presence. The boy Lal tells his story and asks for the Queen of the Forest to be brought to them for a test: the woman is to be place behind a very thick screen; if she is Lal's biological mother, her milk with flow from her breasts and enter Lal's mouth. So it happens; the king recognizes him as his son, reinstates Lal's mother and banishes the six queens.[25]

French ethnologue  [fr] provided the summary of a North Indian variant about the legend of Goriya: a king meets a woman in the forest (possibly the goddess Kali herself). They marry and the king's previous seven wives replace the boy for a wooden object. The boy is found by fishermen and given the name Goriya. When he is young, he has a chance encounter with his father, the king, when the boy puts his wooden horse to drink water. The king notices the absurdity of the situation and discovers the truth.[26] Similar tales are found in Karnataka, Gujarat, and in Mysore.[27]

James Hinton Knowles collected a tale from Kashmir from a teller he identified as Pandit Ánand Ram of Renawari, Srinagar. In this variant, a childless king has three wives. Somehow, his third queen is heavy with child, and the king celebrates this happening. When the time comes, the two other queens, afraid of losing the king's favour, bribe the midwife to replace the boy for a pup and throw the boy in a carpenter's shop. The same happens to a second son. Their mother is banished from the palace and forced to beg for a living. Some time later, the boys grow up and play with a wooden horse in front of the palace, pretending to give food rice and water to the wooden animal. The king wonders about the boys' strange play, to which the boys retort that the same absurdity can be said of a woman giving birth to pups. The king takes notice of the boys' answer, summons the midwife and discovers the whole truth.[28]

Saratchandra Mitra published a tale from North Bihar, "of the 'Wicked Queen's type'". In this tale, a Raja is already married to a Rani, but hasn't had any son yet, so he marries another. The second Rani becomes pregnant and the Rajah gives her a bell to ring if she needs something. After ringing the bell some times - both the rani and her rival -, the Raja decides to not pay attention to the bell, which leaves the pregnant rani to the jealous rani's devices. The second queen gives birth to a boy, which the first rani substitutes for a stone and casts in the river in an earthenware vessel. The same thing happans to the second queen's three other sons, born in the subsequent years. The four boys are found by a potter, who raised the boys as his own sons. When they grow up, the potter carves wooden horses for them, and instructs them to play pretend with the wooden horses in the well where the women from the village go to fetch water. A woman at the well complain to the boys about the strange pastime and they break their wares. The next time, the Raja comes to investigate the commotion and sights the four boys. The Raja summons the poor potter, who tells the whole truth, and the first rani is punished.[29]

Sarat Chandra Mitra translated a legend, "current" in the village of Panchthupi, in the Kandi subdivision of the Murshidabad district, in Western Bengal, which he considered to have "striking similarities" to the Bihari folktale he collected. He relates this story to a goddess of children named Shashthi. In this legend, titled The Legend of the Aśoka Shashṭhî, a doe is hunted by a rajah and takes refuge in the sacred grove that belongs to a Muni. One day, the Muni urinates on a rock and secretes a bit of seminal fluid. The doe licks the rock and becomes pregnant. The doe gives birth to a human girl who is named Asoki and raised by the Muni. The rajah goes hunting the deer in the forest and reaches the sacred grove. He finds the girl Asoki and inquires the Muni, her adopted father, if he can marry her. The Muni agrees to her marriage. Asoki is taken to the rajah's palace and made his new queen, alongside the rajah's previous six queens. Asoki gives birth to seven boys in the subsequent years, who are replaced for a wooden doll each time, cast in a copper cauldron and cast adrift in the stream. The cauldrons wash on the Muni's sacred grove and he rescues them. Meanwhile, Asoki, the youngest rani, escapes the palace and goes back to her adoptive father. She meets her sons and lives with them. One day, the seven boys asks his adoptive grandfather to make wooden horses for them. They go the Rajah's seraglio, where the six queens bathe, to pretend to make the wooden horses drink water. The ranis puzzle at their play, and the boy retort the is no more absurd than a woman giving birth to wooden dolls. The six queens realize the boys are Asoki's sons and orders the guards to kill them. The guards, however, disobey the orders and summon the rajah. The rajah follows the boys to the sacred grove and finds Asoki again. He is told of the whole truth and punishes the six ranis.[30]

Birth of multiple children[]

Another Indian tale, Truth's Triumph or Der Sieg der Wahrheit, follows a family saga, being a tale of certain complexity and extension. In the first part of the tale, a childless Rajah with twelve co-wives sees a bringal tree with no leaves but with 101 bringal fruits. His Wuzeer interprets the sight as a portent: whoever marries the daughter of the Malee who tends the garden, shall father 100 sons and a daughter. The rajah marries the Malee's daughter, Guzra Bai. The girl's humble origins spark the jealousy of the twelve co-wives, who take the 101 children and abandon them in the wilderness. In the second part of the tale, the youngest child, a girl, witnesses her brothers' transformation into crows, but she is eventually found and marries a Rajah of a neighboring region. Her child, the prince, learns of his family history and ventures on a quest to reverse his uncles' transformation. At the climax of the story, the boy invites his grandfather and his co-wives and reveals the whole plot, as the family reunites.[31]

In a tale collected from the Muria people in Kanhargaon, Bastar State, by Verrier Elwin with the title The Nine Scores and One Babies, a Raja with seven wives hasn't fathered a son. One day, a beggar and his wife appear at the palace to beg for alms. The Raja dismisses the man, but lets the beggar woman stay. After some months, the woman is pregnant with child, and the Raja gives her a flute of sorrow and a flute of joy, to blow if she ever need his presence. The beggar woman blows on both flutes to test it, but the Raja becomes annoyed and promises not to get back to her. The other queens seize the opportunity to blindfold the beggar woman while she delivers her children: nine scores of boys and a girl. The queens replace them for a grindstone and cast them with the buffaloes, which suckle the children. The seven queens go to the buffalo shed and notice that the children still live, so they get the children and throw them in the bottom of a well in a Marar's garden. The Marar couple finds the children and adopt them. Years later, when the children grow up, the seven queens look for them to give them a cursed piece of bread, which turns them into monkeys. The boys' sister goes with them to live in the jungle. One day, a hunter finds the girl in the jungle and wants to marry her. The girl refuses, but the hunter promises to turn the brothers back into humans. The hunter fulfills his promise and marries the girl, while her brothers, now back into humans, decide to seek employment elsewhere. They steal for a living, which attracts the attention of the Raja, their father. They are arrested and confront the Raja with the truth of their story. The Raja orders the beggar woman to be brought to them, and for a screen to be put between the beggar woman and the boys. Jets of stream flow from her breasts to the boys' mouths, confirming their parentage.[32]

Other variants[]

Indian scholar A. K. Ramanujan demonstrated the existence of two markedly different modes of storytelling regarding a South Indian variant ot the tale type. One way of narration (which he called "domestic") skips the preamble and is more basic and to the point; the second mode ("bardic") is accompanied by instruments and offers a more elaborate tale: the story about king Chadurangaraja who, despite being married to five queens, never had a son, so he goes on a journey in search of a new queen, and finds a maiden named Kadasiddamma in a temple.[33][34]

In a variant from Salsette Island, Bapkhadî, the Salsette Cinderella, in the second part of the tale, after Bapkhadî marries the prince, she announces that a miraculous event shall happen when she gives birth: if to a boy, "a shower of gold" [golden water] shall appear; if to a girl, "a shower of silver" [silver water]. Everytime she gives birth (to two boys and a girl), the events happen and the king, on a trip, returns home to see his newborn children, but the queen's sisters have taken the children and replace them with animals. The princess Bapkhadi is taken to the dungeon. The siblings are rescued by "the hand of the Almighty God" and grow up. They survive by begging and chanting their story, introducing themselves as Brothers Saya from under the saya tree, Brother Ansa from under the ansa tree and Sister Denku from the Church. One day, the prince - their father - and their aunts pass by them and their aunts give their alms, but the children refuse. The prince is puzzled at the children's behaviour, and they explain that, after they take Bapkhadi out of the dungeon and prepare seven thick curtains, the truth will be revealed. The prince follows with the instructions: behind the heavy curtains, jets of milk stream from Bapkhadi's breasts and into the children's mouth, thus proving their biological connection.[35]

Elwin collected a tale from the Pando people, in the Korba Zamindari, with the title The Raja of Kakarpur: the raja of Kakarpur is already married to six wives, but has yet to father a son. One day, he goes near a tank of water where the princess of Mahuapurgarh and six companion arrive to bathe. The seven girls play in the water and comment with one another what is prophecized for each of them: the princess, the seventh to speak, tells the others her fate is to be the seventh wife to a man and bear him "a son who would shine as brightly as the rays of the sun". He takes the princess by force to his kingdom and marries her. When the fabled boy is born to her, with skin shining as the light, the six other queens become very angry and refuse to talk to their husband unless he banishes the seventh queen from the palace with her son. The boy and his mother are banished to the jungle; the boy eventually separates from his mother and is reared by a sow, a she-dog and a mare. The six queens notice the boy is alive and, to torture him, feign illness and lie to the king that they need the liver of the sow and the she-dog. The mare escapes with the boy to the city of Bhuiharra, where he finds work as a potter's apprentice. During the Ekti festival, the princess and aher twenty handmaidens try to buy some red coloured pots from the boy, now a youth, but he says they are not ready. So he paints the 21 pots with a red paint made with red earth and his urine. The 21 girls drink water from the pot and become pregnant and give birth to a son each. The princess's father organizes a paternity test wherein the sons are to identify their father from all men in the realm. The children indicate the potter as their father, and he tells his life story to the king of Bhuiharra.[36]

In a tale collected from the Santal people, Raj ar eae go̯ṭẹn rạni reaṅ ("A King and his Seven Wives"), a king marries seven wives, wanting to have a child, but no such luck. Then, "Father Isor of Heaven", under the guise of a "Gosse", instructs him to go to his own mango grove and find a tree with seven mangoes and give them to his wives, with the promise that the king give him, the Gosse, his firstborn. The first six wives eat their mangoes and the fruit reserved to the youngest wife. However, she gets the mango rind and eats, becoming pregnant before the other wives. The king arranges the preparations for the birth of his child: the queen shall ring a deep-sounding bell for a boy, and a tiny-sounding bell for a girl. The queen gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl (both bells were sounded), but the other jealous co-wives, out of envy, replace the children for two worn-out brooms. The twins are found and raised by a potter and his wife. The truth is revealed when the Gosse goes to the palace to cash in his promise and tells the king none of the children of the other six queens are his firstborn. The tale later continues with the adventures of the seven half-brothers.[37]

In a Gujarati tale published by author Tara Bose with the title The Story of the Twins, king Vijaypal of Gujarat has six wives, but no child yet. His ministers recommend he marries a poor, but beautiful woman named Suman as his seventh wife. Suman becomes pregnant and gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, who are taken by the other six queens and replaced for pups. The twins are cast in a wooden box in the Shetrunji River and are saved by a hermit. The hermit names the boy Dilaram and the girl Chandrika and raises them as his children. On his deathbed, the hermit gives the twins a magical pot and two rubies. After their adoptive father dies, they rub the rubies against each other and two fairies appear. They wish for the fairies to take them to the land of their birth, Paran. Once there, they build a palace for themselves and Dilaram invites the king and every citizen in the realm for a feast. After the feast, the king takes an interest in the twins' past and orders his ministers to ask around. The ministers find a former midwife named Champa, who looked after queen Suman until the twins' delivery. The king learns the truth, embraces Dilaram as his heir and reinstates Suman as his queen.[38]

In a Tamil tale, the raja's newest wife gives birth to seven children, the eldest a girl, but his cowives replace them with insects and cockroaches. The children are raised by a series of foster mothers (Kali, Nagamma and Ganesa). At the climax of the tale, the eldest sister presents her case as a story in front of the panchayat.[39]

Variants of the tale type have also been found in Himalayan tradition.[40]

Adaptations[]

Comic books[]

The Bengali folktale was adapted into a graphic novel by Indian publisher Amar Chitra Katha, in 1979, with the name Chandralalat, the Prince with a moon on his forehead.[41]

Film[]

The Bengali tale of Kiranmala was adapted into he Bengali-language film Arun Barun O Kiranmala (1979).

See also[]

Footnotes[]

  1. ^ Giuseppe Flora explains that Kiran means 'ray, beam (of light)'. As for her brothers' names, Arun derives from Aruṇa, a Hindu deity associated with the sunrise and whose name means 'the reddish one'.[12]
  2. ^ In the original, the silver tree is called rūpār gācha, the diamond tree is hīrār gācha, and the bird of gold is sonār pākhī.[13]

References[]

  1. ^ Espinosa, Aurelio M. “Comparative Notes on New-Mexican and Mexican Spanish Folk-Tales.” In: The Journal of American Folklore 27, no. 104 (1914): 230. https://doi.org/10.2307/534598.
  2. ^ Stokes, Maive S. H. Indian fairy tales. National Library of Scotland. Calcutta: Privately printed. 1879. pp. 119-137.
  3. ^ Jacobs, Joseph. Indian Fairy Tales. New York: G. P. Putnam Sons. 1892. pp. 156–177.
  4. ^ Day, Rev. Lal Behari (1883). Folk-Tales of Bengal. London: McMillan and Co. 1883. pp. 227-247.
  5. ^ Groome, Francis Hindes. Gypsy folk-tales. London: Hurst and Blackett. 1899. pp. lxviii–lxix.
  6. ^ Bolte, Johannes; Polívka, Jiri. Anmerkungen zu den Kinder- u. hausmärchen der brüder Grimm. Zweiter Band (NR. 61-120). Germany, Leipzig: Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1913. p. 390.
  7. ^ Crowley, Daniel J. "Haring's Herring: Theoretical Implications of the "Malagasy Tale Index"." In: Journal of Folklore Research 23, no. 1 (1986): 46, 48. Accessed November 19, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814480.
  8. ^ Blackburn, Stuart. Moral Fictions: Tamil Folktales from Oral Tradition. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2001. pp. 279-281.
  9. ^ Goldberg, Christine. "Söhne: Die drei goldenen Söhne (AaTh/ATU 707)" In: Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online: Band 12: Schinden, Schinder – Sublimierung. Edited by Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, Heidrun Alzheimer, Hermann Bausinger, Wolfgang Brückner, Daniel Drascek, Helge Gerndt, Ines Köhler-Zülch, Klaus Roth and Hans-Jörg Uther. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. p. 833. https://www.degruyter.com/database/EMO/entry/emo.12.183/html
  10. ^ Hurgronje, Christiaan Snouck. The Achehnese. Volume II. Leiden: Brill, 1906. pp. 143-147.
  11. ^ Dracott, Alice Elizabeth. Simla Village Tales, or Folk Tales from the Himalayas. England, London: John Murray. 1906. pp. 200–213.
  12. ^ Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 66 (footnote nr. 208). http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
  13. ^ Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 67. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
  14. ^ Bradley-Birt, Francis Bradley; and Abanindranath Tagore. Bengal Fairy Tales. London: John Lane, 1920. pp. 162–167.
  15. ^ Basu, Subrata. “Kiranmala”. In: Indian Literature 51, no. 6 (242) (2007): 111–17. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23347645.
  16. ^ Flora, Giuseppe. “On Fairy Tales, Intellectuals and Nationalism in Bengal (1880-1920)”. In: Rivista Degli Studi Orientali 75 (2002): 65–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41913063.
  17. ^ Indian Antiquary. Vol. 22. November 1893. pp. 315-321.
  18. ^ Hower, Edward. The Pomegranate Princess: And Other Tales from India. Authors Guild Backinprint, 2004 [1991]. pp. 39-47. ISBN 0-595-33671-X.
  19. ^ Elwin, Verrier. Folk-tales of Mahakoshal. [London]: Pub. for Man in India by H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1944. pp. 204–209.
  20. ^ Knowles, James Hinton. Folk-tales of Kashmir. London: Trübner. 1888. pp. 397-405, 408–414.
  21. ^ Ratnam, Perala; Ratnam, Kamalā. Laos and Its Culture. Tulsi, 1982. p. 100.
  22. ^ Mitra, Sarat Chandra. "On a Ho folktale of the "wicked queen's" type". In: Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society 12 (1926): 162-164.
  23. ^ Sarat Chandra Roy. The Birhors. Ranchi: 1925. pp. 468-475.
  24. ^ Haidar, Sukumar. "Ho Folk-Lore". In: Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society Vol. 2, Part III (1916). pp. 293-295.
  25. ^ Elwin, Verrier. Folk-tales of Mahakoshal. [London]: Pub. for Man in India by H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1944. pp. 209–212.
  26. ^ Ottino, Paul. "Le thème indo-malgache des enfants abandonnés aux eaux". In: Paul Ottino (ed.). Études sur l'Océan Indien: Les cahiers de l'Université de la Réunion. Saint Denis de la Réunion. 1984. pp. 189–191.
  27. ^ Ottino, Paul. "Le thème indo-malgache des enfants abandonnés aux eaux". In: Paul Ottino (ed.). Études sur l'Océan Indien: Les cahiers de l'Université de la Réunion. Saint Denis de la Réunion. 1984. pp. 190–191.
  28. ^ Knowles, James Hinton. Folk-tales of Kashmir. London: Trübner. 1888. pp. 405–408.
  29. ^ Mitra, Sarat Chandra. "A Bihàrî folktale of the "Wicked Queen's Type" and its analogue from the district of Murshidabad". In: Journal of the Anthropological Society Vol. XI, No. 8, 1917. pp. 979-982.
  30. ^ Mitra, Sarat Chandra. "A Bihàrî folktale of the "Wicked Queen's Type" and its analogue from the district of Murshidabad". In: Journal of the Anthropological Society Vol. XI, No. 8, 1917. pp. 985-991.
  31. ^ Frere, Mary Eliza Isabella. Old Deccan days; or, Hindoo fairy legends current in Southern India; collected from oral tradition. London: Murray. 1898. pp. 38–49.
  32. ^ Elwin, Verrier. Folk-tales of Mahakoshal. [London]: Pub. for Man in India by H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1944. pp. 202–204.
  33. ^ Ramanujan, A. K. "The Relevance of South Asian Folklore." In Indian Folklore II, edited by Peter Claus, J. Handoo, and D.P. Pattanayak. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. 1987. pp. 79–156.
  34. ^ Mulla, Majan. "Professionelle Märchenerzähler im südindischen Karnataka". In Fabula 38, no. 1-2 (1997): 101-111. https://doi.org/10.1515/fabl.1997.38.1-2.101
  35. ^ D'Penha, Geo Fr. "Folklore in Salsette". In: The Indian Antiquary. April, 1891. pp. 142–147.
  36. ^ Elwin, Verrier. Folk-tales of Mahakoshal. [London]: Pub. for Man in India by H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1944. pp. 194–197.
  37. ^ Bodding, P. O. Santal Folk Tales. Vol. 3. Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), 1929. pp. 220-270.
  38. ^ Bose, Tara. Folk Tales Of Gujarat. Sterling Publishers, 1960. pp. 37-39.
  39. ^ Blackburn, Stuart. "Life histories as narrative strategy: prophecy, song, and truth-telling in Tamil tales and legends". In: Telling lives in India: biography, autobiography, and life history. Edited by David Arnold & Stuart Blackburn. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press 2004. p. 220. ISBN 0253344867.
  40. ^ Leavitt, John. "Himalayan Versions of "The Three Golden Sons": The Effect of Context on Narrative Content". In: Journal of Indian Folkloristics 4 (1981): 1–17.
  41. ^ Chandralalat, the Prince with a moon on his forehead. Amar Chitra Katha. Bombay, India Book House Education Trust, 1979.
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