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you will learn tiding of your master. When I heard that, I did as he advised me, and that nymph, whose garments I had taken, followed me, with her bathing-dress dripping with moisture,*[1] and with her arms crossed in front of her breasts.
That hermit said to her, " If you tell us tidings of Naraváhanadatta, you may have back your two garments." Then she said, " Naraváhanadatta is at present on mount Kailása, engaged in worshipping Śiva, and in a few days he will be the emperor of the Vidyádharas."
After she had said this, that heavenly nymph became, in virtue of a curse, the wife of that ascetic, having made acquaintance with him by conversing with him. †[2] So the ascetic lived with that Vidyádharí, and on account of her prophecy I conceived the hope of being reunited with you and I went on living there. And in a few days the heavenly nymph became pregnant, and brought forth a child, and she said to the ascetic, " My curse has been brought to an end by living with you. ‡[3] If you desire to see any more of me, cook this child of mine with rice and eat it; then you will be reunited to me?" "When she had said this, she went away, and that ascetic cooked her child with rice, and ate it: and then he flew up into the air and followed her.
At first I was unwilling to eat of that dish, though he urged me to do so; but seeing that eating of it bestowed supernatural powers, I took two grains of rice from the cooking- vessel, and ate them. That produced in me the effect that wherever I spat, gold §[4] was immediately produced. Then I roamed about relieved from my poverty, and at last I reached a town. There I lived in the house of a hetœra, and, thanks to the gold I was able to produce, indulged in the most lavish expenditure; but the kuțțaní, eager to discover my secret, treacherously gave me an emetic. That made me vomit, and in the process the two grains of rice, that I had
The Nereids in modern Greek stories are swan-maidens; see Bernhard Schmidt's Griechische Märchen und Sagen, p. 134. The subject of Swan Maidens is thoroughly worked out by Baring Gould in his Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, New edition, pp. 561-578. See also Benfey's Panchatantra, Vol. I, pp. 263 and ff. He expresses his firm conviction that tales of this kind will be found in Indian collections.
- ↑ * Or possibly, " clothed in moisture."
- ↑ † The three India Office MSS. read samstavád.
- ↑ ‡ Cp. Vol. I, p. 250; and for what follows p. 230 of the same volume.
- ↑ § Cp. p. 8 of this volume and the note there. In Sagas from the Far East there is a story of a gold-spitting prince. In Gonzeubach's Sicilianische Märchen, Quaddaruni's sister drops pearls and precious stones from her hair whenever she combs it. Dr. Köhler in his note on this tale gives many European parallels. In a Swedish story a gold ring falls from the heroine's mouth whenever she speaks, and in a Nor. wegian story gold coins. I may add to the parallels quoted by Dr. Köhler, No. 36 in Coelho's Contos Portuguezes, in which tale pearls drop from the heroine's mouth.
