Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/346

316 372. Snake and tiger not alluded to by name, for fear of summoning them unawares. Other tiger-lore. Were-tigers.

373. Rain-making. Drenching people, or pouring out water. Fields ploughed by Brahmin women (sometimes commuted for a touch). Singing of songs.

411. Eclipse-lore.

413. Women with moustaches will become widows early. In fact they were meant to be men, and only became women by mistake.

415. Blood-offering to river-gods.

418. More tiger-lore (cp. 372).

336. Mahadeva and Parvati were on a journey. M. told P. that do what you will, some one will find fault. They had an ox; first he rode and his wife walked; people said, "What a knave!" Then he walked and she rode; they said, "What a fool!" Next they both rode; people said, "Inhuman brute!" Then they both walked, and M. was called stupid for pampering his ox. [The fable of the man, his son, and the ass.]

339. A princess marries a vulture, who resumes human shape. Underground country, entered by diving into a well.

340. (1.) The Snake-King.—A certain queen brought forth only girls; and the king said if the next were a girl, both should die. She pretended it was a boy. The sex was concealed till the child's marriage was arranged. On the way, the king of the snakes, for pity, took the girl's place, and was married in her stead. But he had a wife already; and by-and-by she came in search of her husband. She told the princess to ask him what caste he was of. She asked, though he bade her be silent; and so he took her to a tank, and there, resuming his serpent shape, he dived in. Afterwards he returned to his disconsolate princess; the snake-wife tried to bite her, but perished herself.

(2.) A variant of §34 above, p. 208.

378. The Faithful Swan.—They used to feed on pearls. A Raja understands the speech of birds. A monster that ate a man daily.

379. A "cumulative rhyme" of a wholly new type.