and after waiting a certain time coolly sailed away loaded with fruit. Looking down from his lofty position, Si Jura saw his friends making off, so he had no other resource but to go on climbing in hopes of reaching some resting-place. He therefore persevered climbing higher and higher, till he reached the roots of the tree, and there he found himself in a new country—that of the Pleiades. There he met a being in form of a man, named Si Kira, who took him to his home and hospitably entertained him. The food offered was a mess of soft white grains—boiled rice. 'Eat,' said Si Kira. 'What, those little maggots?' replied Si Jura. 'They are not maggots, but boiled rice;' and Si Kira forthwith explained the process of planting, weeding, and reaping, and of pounding and boiling rice. . . . So Si Jura made a hearty meal, and after eating, Si Kira gave him seed of three kinds of rice, instructed him how to cut down the forest, burn, plant, weed, and reap, take omens from birds, and celebrate harvest feasts; and then, by a long rope, let him down to earth again near his father's house."[1]
In the Malay island of Celebes, the episode of the heaven-plant occurs in a story no doubt derived from an Arabic source, its theme being that of the tale of Hassan of Bassora in the Arabian Nights.[2] Seven heavenly nymphs came down from the sky to bathe, and they were seen by Kasimbaha, who thought first that they were white doves, but in the bath he saw that they were women. Then he stole one of the thin robes that gave the nymphs their power of flying, and so he caught Utahagi, the one whose robe he had stolen, and took her for his wife, and she bore him a son. Now she was called Utahagi from a single white hair she had, which was endowed with magic power, and this hair her husband pulled out. As soon as he had done it, there arose a great storm, and Utahagi went up into heaven.
- ↑ St John, vol. i. p. 202.
- ↑ Lane, 'Thousand and One Nights;' vol. iii. ch. 25. The early occurrence of this, which may be called the story of the Swan-coat, in the folk-lore of Northern Europe, is interesting. Among a number of instances, in the Völundarqvitha, three women sit on the shore with their swan-coats beside them, ready to turn into swans and fly away. Or three doves fly down to a fountain and become maidens when they touch the earth. Wielant takes their clothes and will not give them back till one be his wife, etc., etc. Grimm, D. M., pp. 398–402.
