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Life's Secret

The Suo queen went to the door

with a handful of rice

Life's Secret

The prince revived, and, walking about,

saw a human figure near the gate

Phakir Chand

She took up the jewel in her hand, left

the palace, and successfully reached the

upper world

Phakir Chand

She rushed out of the palace ... and

came to the upper world"

(Frontispiece)

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Phakir Chand

He rushed out of his hiding-place

and killed the serpent

The Indigent Brahman

Instead of sweetmeats about a score

of demons

The Story of the Rakshasas

At the door of which stood a lady

of exquisite beauty

The Story of the Rakshasas

In a trice she woke up, sat up in

bed, and eyeing the stranger,

inquired who he was

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The Story of Swet-Basanta

The Girl of the Wall-Almirah

The Story of Swet-Basanta

On a sudden an elephant gorgeously

caprisoned shot across his path

The Evil Eye of Sani

They then set out on their journey

The Boy whom Seven Mothers suckled

A monstrous bird comes out apparently

from the palace

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The Story of Prince Sobur

Hundreds of peacocks of gorgeous

plumes came to the embankments

to eat the khai

The Origin of Opium

You would adorn the palace of

the mightiest sovereign

Strike but Hear

He saw a beautiful woman coming

out of the palace

Strike but Hear

Husband, take up all this large quantity

of gold and these precious stones

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The Adventures of Two Thieves

and of their Sons

They ran away in great fear, leaving

behind them the money and jewels

The Adventures of Two Thieves

and of their Sons

The camel-drive alighted, tied the

camel to a tree on the spot, and

began smoking

The Ghost-Brahman

How is it that you returned so soon?

The Man who wished to be Perfect

At dawn he used to cull

flowers in the forest

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A Ghostly Wife

The Brahman's wife had occasion to go

to the bank, and as she went she brushed

by a Sankchinni

The Story of a Brahmadaitya

The moment the first stroke was given,

a great many ghosts rushed towards

the Brahman

The Story of a Hiraman

The lady, king, and hiraman all reached the

king's capital safe and sound

The Origin of Rubies

What princess ever puts only one

ruby in her hair?

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The Origin of Rubies

Coming up to the surface they

climbed into the boat

The Match-making Jackal

The Jackal ... opened his bundle of betel-leaves,

put some in his mouth, and began chewing them

The Boy with the Moon on

his Forehead

A bright light, like that of the moon,

was seen shining on his forehead

The Boy with the Moon on

his Forehead

The six queens tried to comfort him

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The Ghost who was Afraid

of being Bagged

Now, barber, I am going to destroy

you. Who will protect you?

The Field of Bones

They approached a magnificent

pile of buildings

The Field of Bones

Thus the princess was deserted

The Bald Wife

When she got out of the water, what

a change was seen in her!

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The Preface to "Folk Tales of Bengal" by the Reverend Lal Behari Day

In my "Peasant Life in Bengal" I make the peasant boy Govinda spend some hours every evening in listening to stories told by an old woman, who was called Sambhu's

mother, and who was the best story-teller in the village. On reading that passage, Captain R C Temple, of the Bengal Staff Corps, son of the distinguished Indian

administrator Sir Richard Temple, wrote to me to say how interesting it would be to get a collection of those unwritten stories which old women in India recite to little

children in the evenings, and to ask whether I could not make such a collection. As I was no stranger to the "Märchen" of the Brothers Grimm, to the "Norse Tales" so

admirably told by Dasen, to Arnason's "Icelandic Stories" tranlsated by Powell, to the "Highland Stories" done into English by Campbell, and to the fairy stories collected

by other writers, and as I believed that the collection suggested would be a contribution, however slight, to that daily increasing literature of folk-lore and comparative

mythology which, like comparative philosophy, proves that the swarthy and half-naked peasant on the banks of the Ganges is a cousin, albeit of the hundredth remove, to

the fair-skinned and well-dressed Englishman on the banks of the Thames, I readily caught up the idea and cast about for materials. But where was an old story-telling

woman to be got? I had myself, when a little boy, heard hundreds - it would be no exaggeration to say thousands - of fairy tales from that same old woman, Sambhu's

mother - for she was no fictitious person; she actually lived in the flesh and bore that name; but I had nearly forgotten those stories, at any rate they had all got confused in

my head, the tail of one story being joined to the head of another, and the head of a third to the tail of a fourth. How I wished that poor Sambhu's mother had been alive!

But she had gone long, long ago, to that bourne from which no traveller returns, and her son Sambhu, too, had followed her thither. After a great deal of search I found my

Gammer Grethel - though not half so old as the Frau Viehmännin of Hesse-Cassel - in the person of a Bengali Christian woman, who, when a little girl and living in her

heathen home, had heard many stories from her old grandmother. She was a good story-teller, but her stock was not large; and after I had heard ten from her I had to look

about for fresh sources. An old Brahman told me two stories; and old barber, three; an old servant of mine told me two; and the rest I heard from another old Brahman.

None of my authorities knew English; they all told the stories in Bengali, and I translated them into English when I came home. I heard many more stories than those

contained in the following pages; but I rejected a great many, as they appeared to me to contain spurious additions to the original stories which I had heard when a boy.

I have reason to believe that the stories given in this book are a genuine sample of the old old stories told by old Bengali women from age to age through a hundred

generations.

Sambhu's mother used always to end every one of her stories - and every orthodox Bengali story-teller does the same - with repeating the following fomula:

Thus my story endeth,

The Natiya-thorn withereth.

"Why, O Natiya-thorn, dost wither?"

"Why does the cow on my browse?"

"Why, O cow, dost thou browse?"

"Why does thy neat-herd no tend me?"

"Why, O neat-herd, dost not tend the cow?"

"Why does thy daughter-in-law not give me rice?"

"Why, O daughter-in-law, dost not give rice?"

"Why does my child cry?"

"Why, O child, dost thou cry?"

"Why does the ant bite me?"

"Why, O ant, dost thou bite?"

Koot! koot! koot!

What these lines mean, why they are repeated at the end of every story, and what the connection is of the several parts to one another, I do not know. Perhaps the whole is

a string of nonsense purposely put together to amuse little children.

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