The Prince and the Tigress
translated by Cecil Henry Bompas
A Santhal Pargana Tale
Once upon a time there was a Rājā who had seven sons. One
day a tigress came to the palace and asked the Rājā to allow
one of his sons to be her servant and look after her cattle. The
Rājā consented and ordered his eldest son to go with the
tigress. The young man took his axe and bow and arrows and went with
the tigress to her cave. When he got there he asked where were the cattle which he was to
tend. The tigress pointed out to him all the bears which were roaming
in the jungle and said that they were her cattle. By the cave stood a
large rock and the tigress told the prince to take his axe and cut it
in two. The prince tried, but the rock only turned the edge of his axe
and he quite failed to cut it. The tigress being thus satisfied that
the prince had no superhuman powers sprang upon him and killed him and
devoured his body. Then she went back to the Rājā and said
that she had too much work to be done, that she wished him to give her
a second son. The Rājā agreed, but this prince met the same
fate as the first; and in succession, all the sons of the
Rājā, except the youngest, went with the tigress and were
devoured by her. At last the youngest son went with the tigress: when
bidden to cut the rock in two, he easily accomplished the task. Then
the tigress knew that she had met her master and ran into her cave.
Looking into the cave, the prince saw the bones of his dead brothers.
Gathering the bones together, he prayed for fire to burn them, and fire
fell from above and burned the bones.
Then he climbed a tree in order to be out of the reach of the
tigress, and the tigress came and sat at the foot of the tree so that
he could not descend. Then he prayed again and wind arose and wafted
him away and set him down by a house where lived an old man and his
wife. The tigress followed in pursuit, but the aged couple hid the
prince and assured the tigress that he had not been seen; so the
tigress returned disappointed. The prince stayed with the old people
and worked on their land. One day as he was ploughing, the tigress came
and killed one of the bullocks that were drawing the plough. The prince
at once ran to the house to fetch his bow and arrow that he might kill
the tigress. When he returned, he found that several tigers were
sucking the blood of the bullock and with them a wild boar. He shot an
arrow which wounded the boar. The boar maddened by the pain turned on
the tigers and killed them all; including the tigress which had killed
the Rājā’s sons.
The prince then being no longer in danger from the tigress returned
to his father’s palace. |