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forced on to that flag by the rain and the wind, and thus fastened to it, as elephant-drivers force on an elephant and bind him to a post. And then the flag began to sink with the ship in the billowy sea.
And then the Bráhmans in the ship, distracted with fear, called on their king Chandasinha, crying out for help. And when SattvaŚila heard their cries, so great was his devotion to his master that he could not restrain himself, but with his sword in his hand, and his upper garment girded round him, the brave fellow daringly plunged into the billows, following the flag, in order to counteract the violence of the sea, not suspecting the real cause. And as soon as he had plunged in, that ship was carried to a distance by the wind and waves, and all the people, who were in it, fell into the mouths of the sea-monsters.
And when Sattvaśila, who had fallen into the sea, began to look about him, he found that he was in a splendid city,*[1] but he could not see the sea anywhere. That city glittered with palaces of gold supported on pillars of jewels, and was adorned with gardens in which were tanks with steps of precious gems, and in it he beheld the temple of Durgá, lofty as mount Meru, with many walls of costly stone, and with a soaring banner studded with jewels. There he prostrated himself before the goddess, and praised her with a hymn, and sat down wondering whether it was all the effect of enchantment.
And in the meanwhile a heavenly maiden suddenly opened a door, and issued from a bright enclosure in front of the temple of the goddess. Her eyes were like blue lotuses, her face full-blown, her smile like a flower, her body was soft like the taper fibre of a water-lily's root, so that she resembled a moving lotus-lake. And waited on by a thousand ladies, she entered the inner shrine of the goddess and the heart of Sattvaśila at the same time. And after she had worshipped, she left the inner shrine of the goddess, but nothing would make her leave the heart of Sattvaśila. And she entered once more into the shining enclosure, and Sattvaśila entered after her.
- ↑ * Cp. the palace of Morgan la Fay in the Orlando Innamorato, canto 36, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 168, Liebrecht's translation, p. 76); also the continuation of the romance of Huon de Bourdeaux, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 262, Liebrecht's translation, p. 128); and the romance of Ogier le Danois, (Dunlop's History of Fiction, p. 286, Liebrecht's translation, p. 141); cp. also the 6th Fable in the IInd book of the Hitopadeśa, (Johnson's translation, p. 57). Stories in which human beings many dwellers in the water are common enough in Europe, see Ralston's Russian Folk-Tales, p. 116, and ff, Weckenstedt's Wendische Märchen, p. 192, and La Motte Fouque's story of Undine. The present story resembles in many points " Der rotho Hund" in Gaal's Märchen der Magyaren. There is a similar castle in the sea in Prym und Socin, Syrische Märchen, p. 125.
