Note 165.1 — Chapter XXI · THE STORY AS A WHOLE. THE PROBLEM OF ITS PLACE OF ORIGIN. CONCLUSION.

The only two variants of the Perseus group recovered from the East belong to this class. Somadeva’s tale of Indívarasena has already been abstracted at length.165.1 Its divergencies from the type to which it belongs are striking—so striking that we cannot postulate transmission from Europe without conceding such alterations on the way as almost to disguise it out of all recognition. On the other hand, it is even harder to suppose that any European version can derive its origin from either the Kathá-sarit-Ságara or from the oral narrative worked up into Somadeva’s rhetorical periods. Let us examine the other Eastern variant. It is found in Cambodia, and has been published since the first volume of this inquiry was issued. Its heroes are not described as twins, though children of the same parents, and nearly of the same age. From their childhood they were, like the heroes of many Western märchen, incurably idle. To avoid being put to work, they left home together. A magician gives them two enchanted sabres, either of which will vanquish a whole army. Moreover, if one of the youths die, the sabre of the other will rust; and by means of it the dead youth can be brought back to life. These gifts they accept, though almost too lazy to carry them. They reach a city in mourning on account of the depredations of two yaks, winged monsters which have devoured already more than twenty of the king’s children, and have now demanded the last of them, his beautiful daughter, Neang (Miss) Pou. In vain the king had kindly offered them the daughter of one of his subjects in her place. They insisted on having Pou, and threatened terrible misfortunes on both the people and the king if he refused. Compelled by the prayers of his subjects, he had therefore caused poor Pou to be conducted to the house where the ogres were wont to hold their banquets of royal flesh. The brothers, passing through the city, arrived at the yaks’ house, and lay down to sleep away the heat of the day, in spite of the princess’ warnings. While they were talking to her the yaks drew nigh, and the whirr of their enormous wings resounded above the house. The princess fainted from terror, while the brothers addressed themselves to the fight, and with their enchanted weapons speedily laid the monsters low. After the fight they took the trouble to restore the princess to consciousness, but, too lazy to take her home, rambled forth again. The king, meanwhile, sent two officers to gather up her bones for burial. These men, finding the yaks dead, dipped their staves in the blood, reported to their master that they had slain the monsters, and demanded a reward. Two other mandarins were then sent to find the lady’s bones and tresses; and after some search they found her alive, and hidden in the brushwood beside the road. She refused to return to a father who had so cruelly given her up to be eaten, until he went himself mounted on the royal elephant, and forced her into the palanquin he had brought for the purpose. The king then proposed to give her in marriage to one of the mandarins who pretended to have killed the yaks; but when she told her father the facts, he sent to find the brothers, who were her true deliverers. They refused to go back with the messengers; they were too lazy; and, armed as they were, they repudiated allegiance to the king, and laughed at the threat of compulsion. However, the bodies of the yaks were unburied; they poisoned the air; and even a thousand men were unable to remove them. Nay, all the inhabitants were requisitioned, and an attempt with ten thousand proved unsuccessful in stirring one of the corpses. The brothers had not left the country, and they were incommoded by the terrible odour. Wherefore at last they offered their services, which were gladly accepted. A single touch of their sabres made a great hole in the earth, into which they pushed the yaks, and with another touch threw back the soil and covered them over. The elder brother then weds the princess, while the other sets forth on his travels again, taking the precaution, at his brother’s request, to sow along his path the seeds of a certain rare tree, to show the way he has gone. The adventurer arrives at a depopulated city, where he is attacked by a troop of gigantic birds, and overcomes them only after a fearful fight. Then he sat down to rest on a gong which he found lying in an inner court of the palace, and from a hole in which an agreeable perfume arose. He had not sat there more than an instant, when he was pricked from beneath. He jumped up and examined his seat, but could find nothing but the small hole he had noticed before. So he sat down again. Again he was pricked. He jumped up once more, and taking his sabre he clove the gong in two, when to his astonishment a lovely girl emerged, magnificently clad, and shedding around her a delicious perfume. This leads to explanations. She is called the Maiden of the Scented Locks, and is the king’s daughter. The dreadful birds he had slain had devastated the kingdom, and her father had shut her up in the gong to carry her away to a place of safety. She excused herself for pricking her deliverer because he had sat down on the hole which gave her air, and she was being stifled. The people, who had fled away, by-and-by returned—all save the maiden’s father. He had deserved the misfortunes and desolation of the country, and he returned no more. The younger brother accordingly married the Maiden of the Scented Locks, and they became king and queen. One day the queen’s favourite waiting-woman was carried away by the current of the river while bathing. She was not, however, drowned; and ultimately she was made attendant on the leprous king of a neighbouring country. From her the leper learns about her mistress of the Scented Locks. Here we have, in a rationalistic form, the incident familiar to us in the Egyptian tale of The Two Brothers. The leprous king offers to make his attendant (woman though she was) viceroy if she will only get him the Lady of the Scented Locks. The temptation was too great for her. She returned to her former mistress; and, received by her with joy, she watched her opportunity to murder the king by touching him with his own enchanted sabre. To divert the widow from her grief, she induces her to walk along the river-bank, and to board a trading junk for the purpose of looking at the silks and other merchandise it contains. But the trade was a sham; and before she knew it, the hapless queen was far away down the river, in the hands of the servants of the leprous king. All this time the elder brother was often wondering what had become of his cadet since he departed. One day he found the blade of his sabre rusted, and knew that his brother was dead. Setting out in search of him, he soon found his realm and his tomb. With his magical sabre he opened the tomb, and brought his brother back to life. Then both, disguising themselves with long beards and old garments, set out for the capital of the leprous king. Announcing themselves as able to cure leprosy, they are conducted to the monarch. The treacherous favourite has extorted a promise from the widowed Lady of the Scented Locks to yield to the desires of the king if his leprosy be cured; for leprosy is well known to be an incurable disease. By directions of the pretended physicians a house is built right in the middle of the river; and there they induce the king to put himself under a shower-bath, with which they are to mingle some drops from a bottle containing an infallible remedy. Instead of curing him, they scald him to death. They fling off their disguise, deliver the younger brother’s queen, and conquer the kingdom by means of their sabres. The treacherous favourite is not put to death, but simply banished; and the others live happy ever after.169.1