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Then she pulled out a hair from her head, and gave it to the prince. “To-morrow,” she said, “when no one is near you, you must say to the tree-trunk, ‘The Princess Labám commands you to let yourself be cut in two by this hair.’ Then stretch the hair down the edge of the wax hatchet’s blade.”

The prince next day did exactly as the princess had told him; and the minute the hair that was stretched down the edge of the hatchet-blade touched the tree-trunk, it split into two pieces.

The king said, “Now you can marry my daughter.” Then the wedding took place. All the Rájás and kings of the countries round were asked to come to it, and there were great rejoicings. After a few days the prince’s son said to his wife, “Let us go to my father’s country.” The Princess Labám’s father gave them a quantity of camels and horses and rupees and servants; and they travelled in great state to the prince’s country, where they lived happily.

The prince always kept his bag, bowl, bed, and stick; only as no one ever came to make war on him, he never needed to use the stick.

Told by Múniyá.

NOTES.

FAIRY TALE TRANSLATED BY MAIVE STOKES.

WITH NOTES BY MARY STOKES

HOW THE R�J�’S SON WON THE PRINCESS LAB�M.

1. The “four sides” in this story (p. 153), the “four directions” (p. 156) which ought to have been translated four sides and the four sides in “The Bed,” p. 202, are the four points of the compass. They appear in a Dinájpur story told by Mr. G. H. Damant in the Indian Antiquary, 5th April 1872, p. 115. In the first Russian fairy tale published by Dietrich, the hero’s parents give their elder sons permission “to go on the four sides” when they start on their journeys ( Russische Volksmaerchen, p. 1). In another fairy tale in the same collection (No. 11, p. 144) the Prince Malandrach, when he has lost his way flying in the air and is over the sea, raises himself by a last effort and looks on all the “four sides” in search of a resting-place for his foot, p. 147. Of course, too, like orthodox Russians, the Russian heroes generally bow to all the “four sides,” before attempting their journeys and adventures.

2. Híráman is the name of a kind of parroquet. Irik in the Bohemian tale “Princess Golden-Hair” (Naake’s Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 99) first hears of the princess’s existence from the chattering of birds.

3. “Aunty” was the word used in English by old Múniyá.

4. With the stone bowl compare the pot in Grimm’s “Der suesse Brei,” Kinder und Hausmaerchen, vol. II. p. 104.

5. With the tigers’ coats compare the robes of honour wherewith the knights in the Mabinogion clothe themselves when they go to combat. “And he (Gwalchmai) went forth to meet the knight (Owain), having over himself and his horse a satin robe of honour sent him by the daughter of the Earl of Rhangyw; and in this dress he was not known by any of the host” (“The Lady of the Fountain,” Mabinogion, vol. I. p. 67). Peredur wears “a bright scarlet robe of honour over his armour” given him by the king’s daughter ( ib. p. 363 of “Peredur the son of Evrawc”). And in “The Dream of Rhonabwy” a knight and his horse wear a robe of honour ( ib. vol. II. p. 413).

6. With the tigers’ fight with the demons compare the combat of the grateful lion with the giant, in which the lion bears the brunt of the battle. On the giant’s saying, “Truly, I should find no difficulty in fighting with thee were it not for the animal that is with thee,” Owain shuts the lion up in the castle. “The lion in the castle roared very loud, for he heard that it went hard with Owain,” so he climbed to the top of the castle, sprang down and “joined Owain. And the lion gave the giant a stroke with his paw, which tore him from his shoulder to his hip, and his heart was laid bare. And the giant fell down dead” (“The Lady of the Fountain,” Mabinogion, vol. I. pp. 79, 80).