FOLK TALES OF BENGAL - 22 Bengali Children's Stories E-Book

Anon E. Mouse

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Herein you will find stories like; Life’s Secret, Phakir Chand, The Indigent Brahman, The Story Of The Rakshasas, The Story Of Prince Sobur, The Origin Of Opium, The Man Who Wished To Be Perfect, The Story Of A Brahmadaitya, The Origin Of Rubies and many more.Originally narrated in Bengali, at the behest of Richard Temple, to whom this book is dedicated, Rev. Behari Day translated them into English for a Western audience. These stories are further brought to life through the 32 colour illustrations by Warrick Goble, adding a welcome dimension to the stories, making it easier to imagine the settings for the characters and stories contained herein.Stories have also been purloined from Brahmans, barbers, servants and other sources. We, therefore,  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.Bengali folklore constitutes a considerable portion of Bengali literature. In Bengali society, as with most ancient societies, folk literature became a collective product. It also assumes the traditions, emotions, thoughts and values of the community. Rev. Lal Behari Day was told these 22 Bengali tales by his Gammer Grethel. In turn his Gammer (Grandmother) heard these as a little girl at the knee of her old grandmother, reputed to be a good story-teller. This means these stories have been told and passed down for no less than 5 generations before the author heard them, which takes us back to at least AD1720 - if not earlier. 

Leseprobe

Folk-Tales of Bengal

Translated by theRev. Lal Behari Day

Author of ‘Bengal Peasant Life,’ etc.

With 32 illustrations in colourby

Warwick Goble

Originally published 1883

Resurrected by

Abela Publishing, London

2015

Folk-Tales of Bengal

Typographical arrangement of this edition

©Abela Publishing 2015

This book may not be reproduced in its current format

in any manner in any media, or transmitted

by any means whatsoever, electronic,

electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical

(including photocopy, file or video recording,

internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other

information storage and retrieval system)

except as permitted by law

without the prior written permission

of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London, United Kingdom

2015

ISBN-13: 978-8-822809-42-1

Email:

[email protected]

Website

www.AbelaPublishing.com

“She rushed out of the palace ... and came to the upper world.”

Acknowledgements

Abela Publishing

acknowledges the work that

REV. LAL BEHARI DAY

did in compiling and translating

Folk-tales of Bengal

in a time well before any electronic media was in use.

* * * * * * *

33% of the net profit from the sale of this book

will be donated to Charities.

TO

RICHARD CARNAC TEMPLE

CAPTAIN, BENGAL STAFF CORPSF.R.G.S., M.R.A.S., M.A.I., ETC.

WHO FIRST SUGGESTED TO THE WRITER THE IDEA OF COLLECTING THESE TALES AND WHO IS DOING SO MUCH IN THE CAUSE OF INDIAN FOLK-LORE THIS LITTLE BOOK IS INSCRIBED

Contents

Acknowledgements

Contents

Illustrations

Preface

I Life’s Secret

II Phakir Chand

III The Indigent Brahman

IV The Story of the Rakshasas

V The Story of Swet-Basanta

VI The Evil Eye of Sani

VII The Boy whom Seven Mothers Suckled

VIII The Story of Prince Sobur

IX The Origin of Opium

X Strike but Hear

XI The Adventures of Two Thieves and of their Sons

XII The Ghost-Brahman

XIII The Man who wished to be Perfect

XIV A Ghostly Wife

XV The Story of a Brahmadaitya

XVI The Story of a Hiraman

XVII The Origin of Rubies

XVIII The Match-making Jackal

XIX The Boy with the Moon on his Forehead

XX The Ghost who was Afraid of being Bagged

XXI The Field of Bones

XXII The Bald Wife

Illustrations

“The Suo queen went to the door with a handful of rice”

“The prince revived, and, walking about, saw a human figure near the gate”

“She took up the jewel in her hand, left the palace, and successfully reached the upper world”

“He rushed out of his hiding-place and killed the serpent”

“Instead of sweetmeats about a score of demons”

“At the door of which stood a lady of exquisite beauty”

“In a trice she woke up, sat up in her bed, and eyeing the stranger, inquired who he was”

The Girl of the Wall-Almirah

“On a sudden an elephant gorgeously caparisoned shot across his path”

“They then set out on their journey”

“A monstrous bird comes out apparently from the

palace”

“Hundreds of peacocks of gorgeous plumes came to the embankments to eat the khai”

“‘You would adorn the palace of the mightiest sovereign’”

“He saw a beautiful woman coming out of the palace”

“‘Husband, take up all this large quantity of gold and these precious stones’”

“They ran away in great fear, leaving behind them the money and jewels”

“The camel-driver alighted, tied the camel to a tree on the spot, and began smoking”

“‘How is it that you have returned so soon?’”

“At dawn he used to cull flowers in the forest”

“The Brahman’s wife had occasion to go to the tank, and as she went she brushed by a Sankchinni”

“The moment the first stroke was given, a great many ghosts rushed towards the Brahman”

“The lady, king, and hiraman all reached the king’s capital safe and sound”

“‘What princess ever puts only one ruby in her hair?’”

“Coming up to the surface they climbed into the boat”

“The jackal ... opened his bundle of betel-leaves, put some into his mouth, and began chewing them”

“A bright light, like that of the moon, was seen shining on his forehead”

“The six queens tried to comfort him”

“‘Now, barber, I am going to destroy you. Who will protect you?’”

“They approached a magnificent pile of buildings”

“Thus the princess was deserted”

“When she got out of the water, what a change was seen

in her!”

Preface

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 theMährchen of the Brothers Grimm, to the Norse Tales so admirably told by Dasent, to Arnason’s Icelandic Stories translated 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; an 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 formula:—

Thus my story endeth,

The Natiya-thorn withereth.

“Why, O Natiya-thorn, dost wither?”

“Why does thy cow on me browse?”

“Why, O cow, dost thou browse?”

“Why does thy neat-herd not 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.

Lal Behari Day

Hooghly College,

February 27, 1883.

I

Life’s Secret

There was a king who had two queens, Duo and Suo.1 Both of them were childless. One day a Faquir (mendicant) came to the palace-gate to ask for alms. The Suo queen went to the door with a handful of rice. The mendicant asked whether she had any children. On being answered in the negative, the holy mendicant refused to take alms, as the hands of a woman unblessed with child are regarded as ceremonially unclean. He offered her a drug for removing her barrenness, and she expressing her willingness to receive it, he gave it to her with the following directions:—“Take this nostrum, swallow it with the juice of the pomegranate flower; if you do this, you will have a son in due time. The son will be exceedingly handsome, and his complexion will be of the colour of the pomegranate flower; and you shall call him Dalim Kumar.2 As enemies will try to take away the life of your son, I may as well tell you that the life of the boy will be bound up in the life of a big boal fish which is in your tank, in front of the palace. In the heart of the fish is a small box of wood, in the box is a necklace of gold, that necklace is the life of your son. Farewell.”

In the course of a month or so it was whispered in the palace that the Suo queen had hopes of an heir. Great was the joy of the