Folktales from Bengal

by Soham Saha

  Then he started to eat his way into the elephants flesh. And he burrowed so much, that he entered the elephant’s head. The elephant got very ill. It ran around from one corner of the king’s garden to another, and banged its head on walls. The king called the best physicians in the kingdom.

  If only they knew that there was an ant in its head, they would have smeared its feet with sugar and honey, and the ant would have crawled out. But they did not. They fed it all sorts of medicine, and still the elephant died.

  Now they had a big, fat, and very, very dead elephant. The king had a strange dream that night. He dreamt that his elephant came up to him and said, “I worked faithfully for you for years, my king. Now take my body to Ganges, and give me a burial at sea.”

  The next morning, the king ordered his men to take the elephant to Ganges. Three hundred men tied a rope around the elephant’s corpse, and dragged it towards the river. It was a hot day. After every few feet, they stopped to rest, and panted like dogs.

  A cook and his servant were passing by. The servant looked at the people and said, “Phooie, an itsy bitsy elephant like that, and three hundred men are making a scene to pull it. Why, I could take it to Ganges all by myself if I had to.”

  The three hundred men jumped up to get him at this. They tied him up and dragged him to the king. Not that he protested.

  The king was sulking about his elephant. He looked at the men coming back, and asked. “So, have you taken my elephant to Ganges?”

  The men replied, “All in due time. But first, you have to punish this liar. He says that he can drag your elephant to the river all by himself.”

  The king’s eyebrows hit the ceiling in astonishment. “Really, can you do something like that?”

  “Of course, if your majesty but asks me to. But first, I need to have a little snack.”

  “Somebody get this man a loaf of bread and a bowl of dal. I got to see this,” said the king.

  “A loaf of bread? An ant can eat that. To pull an elephant you have to eat a bit more,” said the servant.

  “What do you want?’

  “Nothing much. A ton of rice, a couple of goats, and a bucket of curd.”

  “I’ll give you that. But you’ll have to eat it all.”

  And so, it was done. The man ate up a tonne of rice, a couple of goats and a bucket of curd, and had a nice little nap.

  Then he spread out his towel over the elephant to make a nice little bundle, put the bundle with the elephant at the end of a stick, and walked towards Ganges, whistling. The king and his men gawked at him all the while, until he disappeared from sight.

  After walking for a long while in the sun, the servant got very thirsty. He saw that there was a hut near a pond, and a little girl was sitting inside.

  “Hello, little girl. Can you give me some water?”

  “My father told me not to talk to strangers.” The girl replied.

  “Such manners! Fine, if you don’t give me water, I’ll take it.”

  He went down into the pond, and began to guzzle it down. First he reached the size of an elephant, then a hillock, and finally there was no more water left in the pond. But he was having some difficulty keeping the water down. So he ate a banyan tree, which stuck in his throat like a cork, so the water could not get out.

  After this, feeling very happy with himself, he lay down beside the pond, and fell asleep. His belly rose up like a mountain. The girl’s father was working in the field when he spotted the mountain-like thing, and came running home.

  The girl told her what happened. “Father, what an evil man he is! I didn’t give him water, and so he drank our pond up. And now he is sleeping like nothing’s wrong.”

  They were walking towards the servant as they were talking. When they reached close, the girl yelled. “Oh my. What a horrible smell. Look father, he has a dead rat or something stuck in a bundle in there.”

  She took the bundle, turned it around once, then threw it far into the air, and it landed straight into the heart of Ganges.

  And the girl’s father, he mustered up his strength to give a mighty kick to the servant’s belly. All the water came gushing out, flooding his home.

  The servant woke up, laughing, and the farmer started to laugh to. They hugged each other and said. “What a strong man you are. We should wrestle.”

  So they decided to wrestle over who is stronger. To decide the winner, they needed a judge.

  They were walking towards the market when they saw an old hunch-backed woman walking towards them, carrying a basket on her hump. She was taking lunch, dried fishes, for her nephew who worked in the fields, herding the king’s seven hundred cows.

  The woman heard of their problem and said, “Why do you need to go to the market. Just hop into my basket of fish and fight. The one who falls loses.”

  The fight began. It went on and on and on, and there were kicks and punches and pokes and jabs. But neither could make the other fall.

  Meanwhile, there was a horrible kite in the country. It flew away with everything, cows, goats, and anything that was not tied down. The old woman was its arch enemy, and it wanted to steal her basket.

  This day, the kite was flying to get its prey. The woman’s nephew heard the sound of his wings, and took all his seven hundred cows in his pocket and ran for it. He went to his home, locked the door, and sighed in relief, saying, “Almost got me today.”

  The kite saw the basket on the back of the old woman. He dived and finally, took the basket high up. The men inside did not like the interruption, so they punched the kite, who dropped the basket, and resumed the fight.

  Meanwhile, the king’s daughter in the country was sunbathing in her balcony, and her maid was combing her hair. Suddenly, something fell in her eye.

  “Maid, something fell in my eye, take it out.”

  The maid twisted a corner of her cloth, and put it in her eye, carefully taking out a tiny little basket.

  The princess cried in delight, ‘What is this? I must know.”

  The tiny basket passed from hand to hand, but nobody could tell what it was. Finally they called in the scientists, who put it under a microscope, and said, “It’s a small basket. There are a few fishes inside, and two men are wrestling.

  The Farmer and the Horse

  In an ancient village in Bengal there lived a very poor farmer. He loved his son so much, that he tried to give him everything he could afford, and everything that the child wanted. And thus, the child was growing up to be very unruly, and his wants knew no bounds.

  The land owner’s son was once passing in front of the farmer’s house on a horse. The farmer’s son saw that, and went straight to his father.

  “Father, I want a horse.”

  The father tried to reason. “I am a poor man, son. Where would I get a horse?”

  But the son wouldn’t listen. He shouted. He screamed. Then he shouted and screamed. Then he stomped his floor on the ground. Just when everyone thought he was tired, he started to shout again. When this didn’t work, he broke his father’s hukka. When all these stopped working, he stopped eating, and said, “I ain’t eating nothing until you get me a horse.”

  The farmer was in a pickle. His son wouldn’t eat at all. So he decided he would try and buy a horse. He gathered up all the money he had saved, and went to the market.

  There, he asked the horse seller, “How much for your horse?”

  The horse seller didn’t even look at him and said, “Fifty bucks.”

  The farmer looked into his bundle. He had five bucks. There was no hope of buying the horse, and he walked towards home, his head hanging low.

  Halfway to his house, he sat down under a tree, and began to rest. He had nearly dozed off, when he heard two merchants arguing.

  The first man said. “This project is going to earn me a lot of cash.”

  The second man said, “All that is going to earn you is a horse’s egg.”

  Horses don’t lay eggs. That’s why the phrase, “a horse’s eg
g”, means zero. But the farmer was not as educated and smart as most people, so he thought that there was indeed something as a horse’s egg.

  He began to ask people around, “Can you tell me where I can get a horse’s egg?”

  A very wicked man heard him, and said, “Come to my house. I will give you a horse’s egg. But it is not cheap.”

  The farmer said, “I only have five bucks on me.”

  The man looked like he was deep in thought, and said, “Fine. It’s a deal then. But only because I like your accent.”

  The man took the farmer to his house, and gave him a melon. He said, “This is a good horse-egg. Don’t break it before you get home. Otherwise the horse is going to run away.”

  The farmer was now happily coming back home with his melon. The melon had a crack on it, and he could see the red inside. He thought, “I must keep an eye on it. Otherwise, the steed is going to escape. I must not sleep. If it gets out, I am going to tie it up with this piece of rope, and drag it to my barn, and tie it there.”

  Thinking of all these things, the farmer reached a river. Suddenly, he felt very thirsty. He kept the melon by the bank, and went down into the river to drink.

  Meanwhile, a fox had spotted the melon lying around, and started to eat it. As the farmer was done drinking the water, the fox was just about done eating the melon. It was near dusk, and there was little light in the village path. When the farmer looked back, he saw something small and fast running away into the forest, leaving the broken melon.

  “Oh my, the steed is escaping!” he cried, and ran after it.

  But it’s not easy to chase a fox. It ran through every nook and cranny of the forest, and the farmer got very tired running after it. He saw a hut in the middle of the forest, and went to the hut to ask for shelter.

  An old woman lived in the hut with her granddaughter. The old woman knew that there was a tiger that lurked behind the hut hoping to get her or her granddaughter. So she never let her out of the hut after dark.

  The farmer was staying on the balcony of the hut, and told the granddaughter about the runaway horse. The granddaughter wanted to hear the whole story, but before he could finish, the grandmother said, “No more stories. Come inside, both of you. Or you’ll get eaten by a tiger or a smiger or something.”

  As usual, the tiger was lurking behind the hut when he heard the words. The word ‘smiger’ struck him as strange. The more he thought about it, the more scared he got. A tiger, or a smiger. He wondered what kind of a monster the smiger was. After a while, he got so scared, that he hid behind a bush in the hut’s front-yard, and lay shivering.

  The farmer could not sleep in the night, wondering where his horse was. In the early morning, he got out to see if it was lightening up outside. He saw the silhouette of the tiger in the bush, and thought, “There’s my steed.” He jumped up on it, and put his cloth over its face, so it could not see.”

  The tiger was terrified. His worst fears had come true. “The smiger has got me,” he thought. He could not see it, but knew what a horrible monster it must have been to hunt even a tiger. So he ran for his life.

  The farmer held on tightly, hoping that when there was enough light in the morning, he would find his way home, and ride the horse there. But when morning came about, he was shocked to find a tiger under him instead of a horse. His hairs stood on edge, as the tiger, for some reason, kept yelling, “Smiger, smiger.” Everyone knew that the only thing worse than a tiger, was a mad tiger. He began to work his mind to get out of this mess.

  They were passing under a banyan tree with a low hanging vine. He grabbed the vine and climbed up on top. But he was still not out of trouble. The tiger could not see, so it thrashed about hopelessly for a while, and then came to rest under the same tree. Then it began to yell to other tigers for help.

  Soon, a few more tigers came under the tree. An elderly tiger asked, “Who tied this cloth around you?”

  The tiger said, “It was a horrible creature. It climbed on my back, and tied my eyes. I could not shake it off, such strong was its grip. I promised it that we will arrange a great feast on its honour, and then only it let me go.”

  The feast began. And unfortunately, it began under the tree itself, where the farmer was hiding. The farmer was shivering behind the leaves, as hundreds of tigers brought in dead deer, rabbits, foxes and goats, piling them up under the tree.

  By this time, the farmer was shivering so much, that the branch started to shake. A tiger saw that, and asked, “What’s that up there?”

  All the tigers looked up, but could not see him behind the leaves.

  “What a long tail he has,” said one of the cubs.

  It was actually a long piece of rope he had taken to tie the horse down. Now, it was dangling between the branches.

  “What has a tail that is this long? The smiger!” cried one of the tigers, and in a flash, all the tigers began to run away, and the area was as tiger free as his cow-barn.

  The farmer thanked god, and climbed down.

  When he reached his house, his son asked. “Father, did you bring my horse?”

  He smacked his son on the head and said, “Here’s your horse.”

  The son never asked for a horse again.

  The Old Woman in the Gourd

  Once upon a time, in a faraway village, lived an old woman. She was so old, that when she walked, she hunched to the ground, and her head wobbled like a pendulum. The woman had three dogs: Ronga, Bhonga, and Bhutu.

  One day, the woman wanted to visit her granddaughter’s house. She told her dogs, “Stay and guard the hut. Don’t run away, okay?”

  The dogs barked, and wagged their tails in agreement.

  The old woman went along the path to her granddaughter’s home, which was in a village a day’s walk from her house. She went slowly, her head bobbing as she walked, and her cane tapping the ground. As it happened, the path to the village ran across a deep and dangerous forest. Many wild creatures lived there, but the woman was fearless, because she knew, with her wit, she could outsmart anyone.

  After an hour of walking, when she was quite deep into the forest, a fox spotted her. He jumped in her way, and said, “Hello, little old lady. I am going to eat you now.”

  The woman replied, “Of course you will. But wait for a while. I am travelling to my granddaughter’s place. I’ll live there for a month, and fatten up. Eat me then. If you eat me now, all you’ll get is skin and bones. “

  The fox said, “All right then. Fatten up for me, and then I’ll eat you.” And he left.

  The old woman continued in her path, cane tapping and head bobbing, for a while more. Now she was stopped by a tiger.

  The tiger said, “Ah my lucky day, a three legged woman. I am going to eat you now, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” said the woman. “But if you eat me now, all you’ll get are my skin and bones. I do not have an ounce of flesh on me. But I am going to my granddaughter’s place. In a month, I will returned, and have a lot more meat on me then. Can’t you wait for just a month now?”

  The tiger said, “Very well. See you in a month,” and went away.

  The old woman walked again, slowly but surely, with her head bobbing and her cane tapping. Nearing the afternoon, she was stopped by a bear.

  The bear said, “Ah, what a slow little thing you are, on your three legs. Why don’t you stop now, so I can eat you?”

  “Well, bear. You could eat me now, but you’ll be the loser, because in a month I will return from my granddaughter’s place, where I am going now, and will be fatter and tastier than ever. Now all I have are these skin and bones.”

  “Very well then. Just a month. No more.” And he went his way.

  Soon after this, the old woman reached her granddaughter’s house. There, she ate so much curd and sweets in the following month that she was fat beyond recognition. If she had eaten a bit more, she would have probably burst. But when the month was over, she was worried.

  “W
hy do you look so worried, granny?” asked her granddaughter.

  “Oh my dear granddaughter, it is time I return home. But I have become so fat, I cannot walk back. I’ll have to roll back. And there’s a bear and a tiger and a fox waiting for me in the path, and they will eat me the moment they see me.”

  “Don’t worry, grandma. I am going to put you inside this gourd, and roll you towards your village. You’ll be safe inside, and the beasts won’t be able to see you.”