________________
78
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MARCH, 1894.
FOLKTALES OF HINDUSTAN.
BY WILLIAM CROOKE, C. S.
No. 9.
- How the Bhuiya Boy became a Rájá.
Once upon a time there was a Bhuiya boy, who was left an orphan when he was very young. The villagers used to give him food, and, at last, when he grew up, he was sent to graze the cattle in the jungle. At night he used to sleep on a platform, which he put up under a banyan tree.
The Lord Paramêsar pitied his case, and sent a fairy from his heavenly court to bring the boy the finest food. But he was afraid to look at her, and, whenever she came, he used to shut his eyes in terror.
After a few days he told an old man of his tribe about the fairy's visits. The old man snid:"This food is sent by Paramésar. If you don't eat it, he will be displeased. But if you wish to stop the visits of the fairy, when she next comes, cut off a piece of the cloth which covers her breast."
So, when the fairy came next night and asked the Bhuiyâ to eat, he pulled out the curved knife, with which he used to peel bamboos, and out off a piece of her sheet. Then she ceased to visit him.
One day the village people said to their barber:-"It is time that boy's head was shaved." So the barber went to where the boy was staying in the jungle. Now the barber is the craftiest of men. As they say "a barber among men, a crow among birds."5 When the barber was shaving the lad's head, he saw the fragment of the fairy's robe, and thought to himself: "Such cloth is not found even in Râjâs' palaces."
"Where did you get this ?" he asked.
"My maternal uncle gave it to me," he answered.
The barber went to the Raja, and told him what a lovely piece of cloth the cowboy bad. The Raja sent for him, and said :
"You must get me a bale' of this cloth." "I will get it if you give me three hundred rupees," said the boy: and the Rûjû gave him the money. Out of this the boy bought a horse for two hundred rupees, and spent the rest on clothes. Then he rode off in search of the cloth.
By and by he came near a city, and halted at a tank to bathe and water his horse. Some sepoys of the Raja of that city saw him, and said:
"This must be some great Râjâ. Our Raja has a daughter for whom he cannot find a fitting match. If he were to marry her to this Raja, his burden of care would be removed."
So they told their Râjâ, and he sent for the Bhuiyâ.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"I am a Râja's son."
"If another Raja offered you his daughter to wife, would you accept her ?" "How can I marry without asking my brothers and parents ? "
1 A folktale told by Khirpatti, Bhuiya of Harwariya Barap, P'ândo Chatan, Mirzapur District: recorded by Pandit Ramgharib Chaubê.
* Machân.
3 Pari.
4 Banka, a knife shaped something like a sickle.
Admin men naud: Panchhin mên kawwa.
The cunning of the barber is proverbial: see Tawney, Katha Sarit Sågara, I. 288.
• The close connection between maternal uncle and nephew is possibly a relic of the matriarchate.
+ Thân.
