264
" Do not act rashly, my daughter ! I am pleased with the exceeding courage which thou hast displayed, though a mere girl; let this noose be, but join the heads of thy husband and thy brother to their bodies, and by virtue of my favour they shall both rise up alive."*[1]
When the girl Madanasundarí heard this, she let the noose drop, and went up to the corpses in great delight, but being confused, and not seeing in her excessive eagerness what she was doing, she stuck, as fate would have it, her husband's head on to her brother's trunk, and her brother's head on to her husband's trunk, and then they both rose up alive, with limbs free from wound, but from their heads having been exchanged their bodies had become mixed together.†[2]
Then they told one another what had befallen them, and were happy, and after they had worshipped the goddess Durgá, the three continued their journey. But Madanasundarí, as she was going along, saw that she had changed their heads, and she was bewildered and puzzled as to what course to take.
" So tell me, king, which of the two people, thus mixed together, was her husband; and if you know and do not tell, the curse previously denounced shall fall on you !" When king Trivikramasena heard this tale and this question from the Vetála, he answered him as follows: " That one of the two, on whom her husband's head was fixed, was her husband, for the head is the chief of the limbs, and personal identity depends upon it." When the king had said this, the Vetála again left his shoulder unperceived, and the king again set out to fetch him.
Note.
Oesterley remarks that the Hindi version of this story has been translated into French by Garcin do Tassy in the Journal des Savants, 1836, p. 415, and by Lancereau in the Journal Asiatique, Ser. 4, Tom. 19, pp. 390-395. In the Tútínámah, (Persian, No. 24, in Iken, No. 102; Turkish, Rosen, II, p. 169) the washerman is replaced by an Indian prince, his friend by a priest, and the rest is the same as in our text. That Goethe took that part of his Legende, which is based on this tale, from Iken's translation, has been shewn by Benfey in Orient und Occident, Vol. I, p. 719. (Oesterley's Baitál Pachísí, pp. 195, 196.)
- ↑ * Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology, p. 185, note, seems to refer to a similar story. He says, " The fastening of heads, that have been chopped off, to their trunks in Waltharius 1167 seems to imply a belief in their reanimation;" see also Schmidt's Griechische Märchen, p. III. So St. Beino fastened on the head of Winifred after it had been cut off by Caradoc; (Wirt Sikes, British Goblins, p. 348).
- ↑ † Cp. Giles's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, pp. 98, 99; De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. I, pp. 303 and 304.
