Page:Sacred Tales of India.djvu/152

130 in-law should offend no more. When next time the latter was with child and the day for the Páshán Chaturdasi ceremony arrived, at cock-crow she was bidden by her mother-in-law to take a heap of cloths soiled with ink and oil to a distant ghát and wash them there. She was not to return home before the task was done.

When she was gone, the old woman quickly got everything ready for the ceremony—the dishes of edibles and all. The ceremony itself was gone through speedily, and when in the evening the daughter-in-law returned home exhausted and famished, she saw in the twinkling of an eye what her mother-in-law had done. Her tongue, tricked out of its first morsels, protruded itself from her mouth like an arrow of fire and entwined itself round a post in the verandah of the house. Just then the old woman stood before her with a handful of flowers and bel-leaves with which the goddess had been worshipped and threw them upon the tongue that had entwined itself round the post, uttering at the same time the charm—

And the tongue contracted itself, and resumed its normal length, and returned to its natural abode.

Since then the tongue never shot out again, and the daughter-in-law never offended by eating the forbidden first mouthfuls. The child she soon after gave birth to and all the children that were afterwards born of her never died in the cradle, but lived and were the joy of their grandmother.

So, ye all that have listened to this sacred kathá, cry victory to mother Bana-Durgá;—''ulu! ulu! ulu!''