Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/108

76 BOOK

the jungle. When again he was nearly starved, he heard a Brahman bewailing his property, and declaring that if a dog or a jackal were to offer to marry one of his daughters, he should have her — an eagerness in complete contrast with the reluctance of the merchant who is obliged to surrender his child to the beast The jackal takes him at his word, and leads his wife away to a splendid subterranean palace, where she finds that each night the jackal lays aside his skin, and becomes a beautiful young man. Soon the Brahman comes to the jackal's cave to see how his child gets on ; but just as he is about to enter, the jackal stops him, and, learning his wants, gives him a melon, the seeds of which will bring him some mone)^ A neighbour, admiring the fruit produced from these seeds, buys some from the Brahman's wife, and finding that they are full of diamonds, pearls, and rubies, purchases the whole stock, until the Brahman himself opens a small withered melon, and learns how he has been over- reached. In vain he asks restitution from the woman who has bought them ; she knows nothing of any miraculous melons, and a jeweller to whom he takes the jewels from the withered melon, accuses him of having stolen the gems fi om his shop, and impounds them all. Again the Brahman betakes himself to the jackal, who, seeing the uselessness of giving him gold or jewels, brings him out a jar which is always full of good things.^ The Brahman now lived in luxury ; but another Brahman informed the raja of the royal style in which his once poorer neighbour feasted, and the raja appropriated the jar for his own special use. When once again he carried this story of his wrongs to his son-in-law, the jackal gave him another jar, within which was a rope and a stick, which would perform their work of chastisement as soon as the jar was opened. Uncovering the jar while he was alone, the Brahman had cause to repent his rashness, for every bone in his body was left aching. With this personal ex- perience of the powers of the stick, the Brahman generously invited the raja and his brother Brahman to come and test the virtues of his new gift ; and a belabouring as hearty as that which the wicked inn- keeper received in the German tale made them yield up the dinner- making jar. The same wholesome measure led to the recovery of the precious stones from the jeweller, and the melons from the woman who had bought them. It only remained now, by burning

' This jar is, of course, the horn of serves as the source of life and wealth Amaltheia, the napkin of Khydderch, will be more fitly examined when we the never-failing table of the Ethiopians, come to analyse the myth of the divine the cup of the Malee's wife in the ship Argo. See the section on the Hindu legend ; but the countless forms Vivifying Sun, Book ii. assumed by the mysterious vessel which