Page:Indian Fables and Folk-lore - Shobhanasundari Mukhopadhyay.pdf/26

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robber-chief was Ratnâkar (lit. "The Mine of Treasures"), the Brâhmin, but of a character far different from Gautama's. He loved to live under the greenwood tree, whence he would often sally out with his devoted band to rifle and plunder. Kâli, the Demon-killer, was the patron Goddess they invoked ere setting out on their nocturnal rounds, and her altar reeked with the blood of human victims.

Of Kâli, the Deity of Destruction, they were, indeed, the most devout worshippers: in her name they practised their nefarious art, and the victims were held to be immolated in her honour. In distant ages a demon infested the earth and devoured mankind as soon as created. The water did not reach his waist even in the most unfathomable parts of the ocean, so terrific a monster was he. He strode over the world unrestrained, rioting in the destruction of the human race, until the Goddess came to the rescue.

She attacked the demon and cut him down, but from every drop of his blood another demon arose; and though the Goddess continued to cut down these new-created demons with wonderful adroitness, fresh broods of demons sprang from their blood, as from that of their progenitors. But the Goddess is furnished with a tongue of extraordinary dimensions, and when she found the drops of blood thus rapidly changing into demons, she promptly licked them away after every blow, and thus put an end to the demoniac race.

Such was the patron Goddess of these robbers.