Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/286

278 Adamjám, of the city of Bhambor (ancient Bhambhará, or Barbariké in Sindh).

Adamjám, the king of Bhambor, had a daughter born to him of whom the astrologers prophesied that she would go astray. So they called the infant Sassí, put her into a box and floated her down the river. A washerman named Atá came across her in the box, and took her home and brought her up as his own daughter. It, however, got noised abroad as to who she really was; and when she was grown to womanhood she wrote a letter to her father announcing her existence. He gave her a palace to live in, where her attendants told her of Punnún, and sang his praises to such an extent that she fell in love with him. The same thing happened to Punnún; so he visited her disguised as a faqír, and married her secretly. After a while his people found him out, and induced him to desert her and to return to his native Kecham. She tried to follow him up on foot, but died in the desert on the road, and was buried on the spot out of pity by one Káká, a shepherd. After a while remorse seized hold on Punnún, and he ran away from home again to search for her, and at last died at her grave.

Mirzá, a chief man (hákim) among the Siáls on the banks of the Chínáb, and Sáhibán, the daughter of Khímá, a Kharal, fell mutually in love. He used to come across the river daily to meet her in the wilds, and her brethren found this out, and taking him unawares with his mistress, killed him under a tree. After this the girl went mad.

8., the Fountain of Shírín, by Ghulám Maullá Khán; published in 1244 , or 1825 , at the Nawal