Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 26, 1915.djvu/97

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{terhumd) named Zise followed her, and put his hands over her €yes. The old woman said : " Who are you ? Go away." But Zise said : " I won't let you go till you promise me your daughter in marriage." So she promised, and he let her go ; but when she looked round she saw no one. A few days after the same thing happened, and again she promised, and went home in grief. One day the girl was at work with her companions in the field, and as she was returning she lagged behind, and Zise carried her off and lived with her as her husband. A year after she came back to her mother and said : " My husband is a very handsome, wealthy man. Come with me and he will give you anything you ask. But I warn you, there is a basket hanging on the right side of the middle room of his house ; in it he keeps all kinds of animals : ask for nothing save that basket." Then they went along together, but they kept dropping husks all along the road lest the old woman should lose her way. The old woman stayed a few days with her son-in-law, and then said she would go home. Then Zise said : " Tell me what you would like, and I will give it to you." The old woman said : " There are many things I like, but I cannot carry them. I ask only for the little basket hanging in the middle room to keep my yeast in." Zise was troubled, and said : " Don't ask for that. Ask for something else." But the old woman said : " I am weak and cannot carry heavy things." So Zise gave her the basket, but he warned her : " Don't open it on the road or anywhere else till you get home. Then put a fence round it, and shut the door when you open it. Don't go out of the house for five days." So she started for home with the basket. When she had gone about half way she found the basket very heavy, and she took off" the lid, when animals of every kind, wild bulls and mithafi, and bears, birds, mice, and all kinds of creatures came out of it. Those that were able to fly or run away escaped ; the others the old woman saved by shutting down the lid. When she came home she shut the door and opened the basket. She found in it cows and buffaloes, pigs and dogs, and various kinds of fowls. These she kept five days in the house, and they became tame. Next year her daughter and son-in-law came to see her, and found her house full of animals. Zise said to his mother-in-law : " Kill these fat bulls and eat them in my name," And so the Nagas to