The Wax Horse1

The Wax Horse1

In a certain country a son was born to a certain King, it is said. Having caused Brāhmaṇas to be brought to write this Prince’s horoscope, at the time when they handed it over, after they gave information to the King that when the Prince arrived at maturity he was to leave the country and go away, the King, for the Prince to be most thoroughly guarded, caused a room on an upper story to be made [for his occupation], it is said.

This infant Prince having become somewhat big, being suitable for game amusements and the like, during the time while he was passing the days he saw in the street a Wax Horse that [persons] brought to sell; and having told his father the King to take and give him it, at the time when he considered it his father the King paid the price, and taking the horse gave it to his son, it is said. This horse, furnished with two wings, was one possessing the ability to fly in the sky.

After he had got this horse for a little time, when the Prince became big to a certain extent, not concealing it from anyone whatever, by the help of the Wax Horse he went to fly. Well then, the saying, too, of the soothsayer-Brāhmaṇa became true.

The Prince having gone flying by the power of the horse, went to the house of an old mother, who having strung [chaplets or garlands of] flowers gives them at the palace of yet [another] King. While here, having hidden the Wax Horse somewhere, when staying at the flower-mother’s house he asked the flower-mother [about] the whole of the circumstances of the royal house, and got to know them.

Ascertaining them in this way, and after a little time getting to know the chamber, etc., on the floor of the upper story in which the King’s daughter stays, he went during the night time by the Wax Horse to a room in which is the beautiful Princess; and for even several days, without concealing himself having eaten and drunk the food and drink, etc., that had been brought for the Princess, he went away [before she awoke]. And the Princess, perceiving that after she got to sleep some one or other had come to the chamber and gone, on the following day not having slept, remained looking out, it is said.

The Prince having informed her that he was a person belonging to a royal family, and while conversing with her having become friendly, he, making a contract to marry her also, began to come during the following days after that.

And during the time when the Minister was becoming very sorrowful, when the other daughters of the King having come asked the Minister, “Why are you in much grief?” he gave them information of the whole of the circumstances. The Princesses having assembled together, in order to save the Minister contrived a stratagem thus, that is, having thought that without a fault of the Minister’s indeed, some one or other, a person from outside, by some stratagem or other will be coming near the Princess, they put poison in the bathing scented-water boat, and placed guards at the pool which is at the royal palace gateway.

The Prince having come, when he bathed in the scented water prior to going to the Princess’s chamber the poison burned him, and having gone running, when he sprang into the pool the guards seized him. Having gone [after] causing this Prince to be seized, when they gave the explanation of the affair to the King he freed the Minister, and ordered the Prince to be killed.

And the Princess while in the midst of the forest having borne a son, said, “I don’t want even the son of the base Prince”; and having put the child down she went into the neighbourhood of villages. During the time when this Princess’s father went into the midst of the forest for hunting he met with this child, and having brought it to the royal house he reared it.

One day, having mounted on horse-back, while he was on the journey going for the marriage contract some young birds having been trampled on by the horse, the hen in this way scolded the Prince, that is, “As it is insufficient that this one is going to take his mother [in marriage], he killed my few young ones.” [Thus] she scolded him. Because during this day there was [this] unlucky omen, having turned back and come, he went on the following day.

When going on that [second] day, a young goat having been trampled on by the horse the female goat also scolded him: “As it is insufficient that he is going to take this one’s mother [in marriage], he killed our young ones.”

When going on the third day also, just as before there was the unlucky omen.

Well then, on the third day, also, there having been the unlucky omen, not heeding it and having gone for the contract, not knowing even a little about his mother, from her bearing him up to the time when she came to the girls’ society he asked about the principal occurrences [of her life. Hearing her account of her abandonment of her child], he said, “It was I indeed who was met with in the midst of the forest in such and such a district; because of it this is indeed my mother.”

Ascertaining it, and having gone spreading the news, and seeking out even his father and having returned, he was also appointed to the sovereignty in succession to the King his relative, or who was his mother’s father; and having married [a Princess] from a royal family, he caused the time to go with glory, it is said.

Western Province.

See the first note after No. 81, vol. ii.

In The Story of Madana Kāma Rāja (Pandit Naṭēśa Sāstrī), p. 50, a Prince who had been adopted by a King of Madura, whom he had succeeded on the throne, saw, at the house occupied by dancing-girls, his own mother, from whom he had been separated since his birth, and who had been banished,—and took a fancy for her. When he was about to visit the house in the evening he trod on the tail of a calf and crushed it. In reply to the calf’s complaint, the cow exclaimed that such an act might well not be considered a dishonour by one who was about to visit his own mother. The young King, who understood the language of animals, retraced his steps, prosecuted inquiries, learnt from the Goddess Kālī the story of his birth, his abandonment, and protection by her, and the history of his mother. He brought his mother to the palace, and thanks to Kālī’s advice recovered his father, who had been spirited away by the Sapta-kanyās or Seven Divine Maids.

In The Kathākoça (Tawney), p. 49, a Prince, who when an infant had been carried off and adopted by a Vidyādhara, afterwards saw his mother seated at a window, fell in love with her, and by the magical art of the Vidyādharas, which he had acquired, carried her off in an aerial chariot. While he was in a garden with her he heard the conversation of two monkeys, and learnt from it that he was her son. Two hermits confirmed this, and in the end the Prince and his parents became Jain hermits.

In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., pp. 177 ff., the son of a woman who had been sent away during her husband’s absence, in the belief that she was an ogress, was sold to a Queen soon after birth by the widow with whom his mother lodged, and was brought up as her son, the King believing her false statement that she had borne him. When he grew up, the supposed Prince saw his mother, who still lived with the widow, fell in love with her, and induced the King to agree to his marriage to her. She stated that she was already married, and obtained a postponement of the wedding for six months. In the meantime her husband returned, went in search of his wife, heard that she was to be married to the Prince, sent her his ring, and they were reunited. The Prince ascertained that he was their son, the widow who sold him was executed, and the Queen was banished.

In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. i, p. 79, a Brāhmaṇa who had obtained a young Garuḍa or Rukh from Vibhīsana, the Rākshasa King of Ceylon, visited on it, on three successive nights, a courtesan with whom he had fallen in love, whom he eventually married.

In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 145, there is an account of a Princess who was weighed every day against five lotus flowers, being no heavier than they were.

In Indian Fairy Tales (M. Stokes), p. 1 ff., there is a story of a Princess who was weighed against one flower every day, after her bath. She was married by her parents to a Rāja of the same weight as herself.

In Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. i, p. 376, a girl who was reared by a crane in its nest on the top of a tree was weighed daily by it. In this manner it ascertained that she had improper relations with a young man who had climbed up the tree and was concealed there by her.

In Folk-Tales of Hindustan (Shaik Chilli), p. 108, a Prince got his grandfather, who was a carpenter, to make a wonderful wooden horse which could either move on the earth or fly in the air, as it was bidden.

In the Arabian Nights (Lady Burton’s ed., vol. iii, p. 137 ff.), an aged Persian sage presented a Persian King with a flying horse made of ebony, which could carry its rider where he wished, and “cover in a single day the space of a year.” In return for it the King promised him his daughter in marriage, but her brother objected to this, tried the horse, and was carried far away before he found the pin which controlled the descent. He alighted at night on a palace roof, entered a Princess’s room, was discovered, offered to fight all the troops if he had his own horse, and while they awaited his charge rose in the air and returned home. At night he sailed back and brought away the Princess.

In a foot-note, p. 139, Sir R. Burton suggested that the Arabian magic wooden horse may have originated in an Indian story of a wooden Garuḍa [bird]. The legend of a flying horse, however, is found in the earliest hymns of the Ṛig Veda. If this period was about 2,000 B.C., the notion may have arisen in the third millennium B.C. In the hymn 163 of Book I, the horse is mentioned as possessing wings—“Limbs of the deer hadst thou, and eagle pinions” (Griffith’s translation). In iv, 40, 2, the horse Dadhikrās is described as having wings. In i, 85, 6, the wings of the spotted deer (clouds) which draw the cars of the Maruts, the Storm Gods, are referred to; the car of the Aśvins was drawn by winged asses (i, 116–117, 2).

At a later date, the account of the treasures produced by the great Churning of the Ocean by the Gods and Asuras includes the winged horse Uccaihśravas.

In the Jātaka tale No. 196, the Bōdhisatta is described as transforming himself into a flying horse which carried a party of wrecked merchants and sailors from Ceylon to India.