Note 132.3 — Chapter XX · THE MEDUSA-WITCH IN SAGA AND SUPERSTITION.

Here the destruction of the city was caused by niggardliness towards a personage of supernatural power. Another Indian saga shows us this crime punished by petrifaction. Near the village of Dudhi, in South Mirzapur, are two stones, once a bride and bridegroom who were thus transformed by an angry bhút, or malevolent spirit. His proper offerings had been forgotten, and he wrought his vengeance in this way.132.3 Sometimes the fault is breach of tribal custom or social convention. When a rajah’s daughter made a rash vow only to wed him who could count the palm-trees within view of her father’s palace, and a low-born wizard fulfilled the condition, the earth herself interfered and, rather than allow so shameful a marriage to be accomplished, she turned the princess into a stone, which now lies within the ruined fort of Rájá Sahay, protected from human touch by a number of enormous snakes.133.1 Among the Gonds of Central India, the bride goes in procession to the bridegroom, instead of his coming to her, as is usual among the Hindus. It is intended in this way to prevent the repetition of the catastrophe which overtook a luckless pair who were about to be married in the ordinary way. The youth, borne on his uncle’s shoulders in the procession, came within sight of his bride, and unable to restrain his impatience he leaped to the ground and looked with all his might to the place where he expected to see her. She felt no less eager, and their eyes met. In a moment not only the young couple but also the bridegroom’s uncle were turned into sandstone spires yet visible on the road in descending into the valley of the Narbada over the Vindhyan range from Bhopál.133.2 The same cause may perhaps be understood in an Enganese tale accounting for a block of coral and a rock bearing some resemblance to human form off the coast of the island, near the anchorages of Baraháu and Kai-Kokoh. The one represents a husband who was deserting his wife because he found she had a disgusting malady, and the other the deserted wife.133.3 It is more obvious in the case of two stones in the tanks near the temples at Arang, in the Ráepur district of India, and at Deobáluda. The erection of the pinnacle of a temple is the act of completion; and it seems that it is necessary to be performed naked. These two temples were built simultaneously. When they were ready to receive their pinnacles the mason and his sister agreed to put them on at the same auspicious moment. Stripping themselves according to custom, they climbed to the top. As they reached it, each could see the other, and each through shame jumped down into the tank beneath and was changed into stone. Both stones are visible in seasons of drought, when the water in the tanks is low.134.1