As the Jackal passed by, the Brahman was saying to himself, 'O dear me, what can I do for my seven daughters! I shall have to support them all my life, for they are much too poor ever to get married. If a dog or a Jackal were to offer to take one off my hands, he should have her.' Next day the Jackal called on the Brahman and said to him, 'You said yesterday if a Jackal or a dog were to offer to marry one of your daughters, you would let him have her; will you, therefore, accept me as a son-in-law?' The Brahman felt very much embarrassed, but it was certain he had said the words, and therefore he felt in honour bound not to retract, although he had little dreamed of ever being placed in such a predicament. Just at that moment all the seven daughters began crying for bread, and the father had no bread to give them. Observing this, the Jackal continued, 'Let me marry one of your seven daughters, and I will take care of her. It will at least leave you one less to provide for, and I will see that she never needs food.' Then the Brahman's heart was softened, and he gave the Jackal his eldest daughter in marriage, and the Jackal took her home to his den in the high rocks.
Now you will say there never was a jackal so clever as this. Very true; for this was not a common jackal, or he could never have done all that I have told you. This Jackal was, in fact, a great Rajah in disguise, who, to amuse himself, took the form of a jackal; for he was a great Magician as well as a great Prince.
The den to which he took the Brahman's daughter looked like quite a common hole in the rocks on the outside, but inside it was a splendid palace; adorned with silver, and gold, and ivory, and precious stones. But even his own wife did not know that he was always a Jackal, for the Rajah never took his human form except every morning very early, when he used to take off the jackal skin and wash it and brush it and put it on again.
After he and his wife, the Brahman's daughter, had lived up in their home in the rocks happily for some time, who should the Jackal see one day but his father-in-law, the old Brahman, climbing up the hill to come and pay him a visit! The Jackal was vexed to see the Brahman, for he knew he was very poor, and thought he had most likely come to beg—and so it was. The Brahman said to him, 'Son-in-law, let me come into your cave and rest a little while. I want to ask you to help me, for I am very badly off, and much in need of help.'
'Don't go into my cave,' said the Jackal, 'it is but a poor hole,
