Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/201

Rh essential from the patterns now employed for the decoration of the ordinary phanek. These folk-tales are chanted, to the accompaniment of the pena or fiddle, in a high-pitched key with a crooning nasal tone. Though the actual words of the ballads are not now intelligible to the common people, everyone from old familiarity knows the purport of the passages; they know when to laugh at the witticisms of the comic characters and when to be moved to tears by the sad misfortunes of the hero and heroine. The iseisakpa, the man who makes the song, is more often than not ignorant of the comfortable art of writing, and trusts to his considerable powers of memory. Variations, even gags, are permitted within certain limits. I have seen and collated three versions, which differ slightly in very unimportant details, but agree in all the points which Colonel M'Culloch mentions in his summary.

To the class of religious poetry due to Hindu inspiration belongs the tale of the sufferings of the gentle Saint Dhananjoy. He was a prince of the Kubo country, and forsook his duties to the State for the joys of family life with his wife and two sons. Meditation and divine worship were more to his liking than court business. His brother feared that he was plotting against him, and sent men to burn him and his. They escaped to the jungle, and wandered there for many days, houseless, hungry, worn with travel over rough stones. Vanu, the beautiful wife of the saintly prince, went to the river bank to beg for food, but was captured by a Mohammedan trader and a Chinese jeweller, whose boat was moored close by. She left her cloth on the bank to guide her husband and son in their search for her. At last they came to a place where was a village, but on the far bank of a mighty river. The prince swam across with his elder son, and was swimming back to fetch the sleeping baby he had left behind when a huge fish swallowed him in full sight of his elder son. Presently a dhobi