Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/103

Rh CHAP. As they waited, a fluttering of little wings was heard, and a parrot flew over Champa Ranee's head, calling out, " Nautch-girl, nautch- girl, what have you done ? " Champa Ranee recognised the voice as Vicram's : he went on, " Will you go body and soul to heaven ? Have you forgotten Polly's words ? "

Champa Ranee rushed into the temple, and falling on her knees before the idol, cried out, " Gracious Power, I have done all as you commanded ; let your words come true ; save me, take me to heaven."

But the parrot above her cried, "Good-bye, Champa Ranee, good-bye ; you ate a chicken's head, not mine. Where is your house now ? Where are your servants and all your possessions ? Have my words come true, think you, or yours ? "

Then the woman saw all, and in her rage and despair, cursing her own folly, she fell violently down on the floor of the temple, and, dashing her head against the stone, killed herself^

It is impossible to question the real identity of these two stories. Origin and incredible that the one could have been invented apart from the of these^^' other, or that the German and the Hindu tale are respectively stories, developements merely from the same leading idea. This idea is that beings of no repute may be avengers of successful wrongdoers, or to put it in the language of St. Paul, that the weak things of the earth may be chosen to confound the strong, and foolish things to confound the wise. But it was impossible that this leading idea should of itself suggest to a Hindu and a Teuton that the avenger should be a bird, that the wrongdoer should punish himself, and should seal his doom by swallowing his persecutor or by at least thinking that he was devouring him. There is no room here for the argument which Professor Max Miiller characterises as sneaking when applied even to fables which are common to all the members of the Aryan family.^ A series of incidents such as these could never have been thought out by two brains working apart from each other ; and we are driven to admit that at least the machinery by which the result was to be brought about had been devised before the separation, or to main- tain that the story has in the one case or in the other been imported bodily. Probably no instance could be adduced m which a bor- rowed storj' differs so widely from the original. In all cases of adaptation the borrower either improves upon the idea or weakens it. Here both the stories exhibit equally clear tokens of vigorous and independent growth,-''

' Frere, Old Dcccan Days, p. 127.

ii. 233. feature of the Hindu popular stories
 * It is scarcely an exaggeration to
 * Chips from a German Workshop, say that there is scarcely one important