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4. With the children in the fruit and flowers compare in these stories, Phúlmati Rání, p. 3: Loving Lailí, p. 81: the Bél-Princess, p. 146, and paragraph 5 of the notes to that story, p. 283: and in Old Deccan Days, “Surya Bai,” p. 86: and “Anár Rání and her two maids,” p. 95. With these may be compared the Polish Madey (Naake’s Slavonic Fairy Tales, p. 220). Madey is a robber who commits fearful crimes; he repents, and sticks his “murderous club” upright in the ground, swearing to kneel before it till the boy who has caused his repentance returns as a bishop. Years go by: the boy, now a bishop, passes through Madey’s forest. The club has become an apple-tree full of apples and he discovers Madey through their sweet odour. At Madey’s request the bishop confesses him; and as Madey confesses his crimes, the apples on the tree, one after another, become white doves and fly to heaven. They were the souls of those he had murdered.

In an unpublished story told by Dunkní, the incidents of the children being in the fruit, and the fruit not letting itself be gathered by any but the rightful owner of its contents (as is the case also with the Bél-Princess), again occur. In this story there is a prince called Aisab, who, as he wished very much to have children, married. At the same time he took an oath that if his child, when he had one, cried, he would kill it, and then if his wife cried he would kill her too. His first wife gave him a child who died; she cried and was killed by her husband. The same thing happened to the second wife. He then married a third wife, called Gulíanár. She had a little son, Dímá-ahmad, and two or three years later another son, called Karámat. The first boy died, but Gulíanár did not cry–she only grieved for him in her heart. Karámat was unhappy from seeing other children playing with their brothers and sisters, and asked his mother “why he had no brother or sister to play with?” She said, “Once you had a little brother and he died.” Then Karámat began to cry, and his father killed him immediately with his sword because of his oath, though he loved Karámat dearly. The “mother was still sadder than before, but she never wept.” Then God took pity on her and sent down into Prince Aisab’s garden a big bél-tree, and on this bél-tree was a fruit. Every one tried to gather this fruit, even Prince Aisab tried, but each time their hands approached it the fruit rose into the air and returned again when the hands were withdrawn. Then Gulíanár stretched out her hand “and the fruit fell into it.” She took it into the house and tried to break it open with a stone, and a voice called out, “Mother, mother, not so hard; you hurt us.” She was very much frightened, thinking a Rakshas or a demon was in the fruit. Prince Aisab was equally alarmed, but his wazír, Mamatsa, broke the fruit open gently in obedience to the little voice that called out, “Don’t knock so hard, Mamatsa; you hurt us;” and out of it stepped the two little children Dímá-ahmad and Karámat. Dímá-ahmad was very beautiful. On his head was the sun, on his face the moon, and on his hands stars, and he had long golden hair. He married a princess, Atása, who also had the sun on her head, the moon on her face, stars on her hands, and “her hair was of pure gold and reached down to the ground.” The idea that none but the rightful owner can catch the child is found too in Grey’s Polynesian Mythology at pp. 116, 117, in the story of Whakatau, who was fashioned in the sea from his mother Apakura’s apron by the god Rongota-kawiu. This child lived at the bottom of the sea; but one day he came on shore after his kite, and all who saw him tried in vain to catch him. Then said Whakatau, “You had better go and bring Apakura here; she is the only person who can catch me and hold me fast.” His mother then comes and catches him.