Indian Fairy Tales

Of more general interest than the few peculiarities of these tales are the many points in which they resemble and illustrate some of the familiar features of European folk-lore. As an example of the latter may be taken a "husk-myth," which is a valuable contribution to the literature of the "Beauty and the Beast" cycle. In all the stories belonging to that group, the action turns upon the union of the human hero or heroine with a spouse who is really or apparently an inferior animal. In the modified version of the story with which our nurseries have become acquainted through a French literary medium, the species of Beast to which the Beauty is wedded is not stated, and its transformation into a princely husband is attributed to her unaided love. But in by far the greater part of the variants of the folk-tale on which it seems to have been founded, as well as of the other stories in which a similar transformation is the principal feature--variants which have been gathered in abundance from all parts of Europe, not to speak of Asia--the animal nature of the mysterious spouse is clearly defined. In them the husband whom the Beauty is induced by filial affection, fear, or compassion to wed, is an unmistakable Beast--a pig in Sicily, a bear in Norway, a hedgehog in Germany, a goat in Russia. Sometimes he is even of a lower type, often a frog or a snake. And once, in Wallachia, he has been transferred from the animal to the vegetable world, and figures as a pumpkin. In every instance he is represented as being able to change at times his repulsive appearance for one of beauty, and this he generally does by doffing a kind of husk which when donned conceals his real form, and invests him with that of an inferior being. If this husk be destroyed during the temporary absence of its owner, he loses his transforming power. The destruction of the husk is generally the work of the wife, who is sometimes rewarded, her husband remaining with her constant to his true nature; at other times she is punished, he being lost to her for a time or for ever. These stories about a monster husband have their exact counterparts in tales about a monster wife, the leading idea being the same in both groups; the only difference being that it is the wife who appears at times as a frog or other inferior creature, and who continues to do so until her transforming power terminates with the destruction of her disguising husk.

Now these temporary transformations, though common to the folk-tales of all parts of Europe, are not in accordance with the European superstitions of the present day, nor with those, so far as we are acquainted with them, of old European heathenism. The nearest approach to them is afforded by the wehr-wolf superstition, but that is an isolated belief, and appears to be based upon altogether different ideas. As to the metamorphoses of classical literature, they are of a nature quite alien to that of the voluntary eclipse, under a degrading form, of a Frog Princess or a Pig Prince. It may be said with confidence that European "husk-myths" do not explain themselves; the peasants among whom they are current, cannot explain them; and the knowledge we have of ancient European paganism throws no light on their meaning. But in India, where countless variants of such tales exist--many of them preserved in ancient as well as in modern literature, but by far the greater part still current among the common people--the transformations in question are frequently, if not generally, explained in the stories themselves, and explained in a manner perfectly in accordance with the Indian thought of the present as well as of the past. To Indian minds there is nothing monstrous in the belief that a celestial being may have been condemned, in consequence of the wrath of a superior divinity, or even of the magic words pronounced by an offended sage, to assume for a time the inferior form of a mere man or woman, or even to wear the shape of an inferior animal--a monkey or a frog; and that this transformation is to continue chronic, though not constant, until the destruction of the disguising skin or husk, by the donning of which it is from time to time brought about, deprives the curse of its power, and enables earth's celestial visitor to return to heaven. The whole story is closely connected with Indian religious beliefs, and may fairly be looked upon, when found in India, as an expansion of a Hindu myth. Its existence in other parts of Asia may, at least frequently, be attributed to the natural spread of Hindu tales among the various tribes and nations which accepted Buddhism from India.

If all this be true, and the "husk-myth" stories which are current all over Europe may justly be supposed to have drifted westwards from India, then all Indian variants of these tales naturally become invested with special importance. The specimen in the present volume, the "Monkey Prince" (No. 10), belongs to a remarkably interesting class--that in which the story-teller gives an explanation of the hero's transformation. A childless king is told by a fakír to give some mangoes to his seven wives. Six of them eat up the fruit, and each of the six gives birth to a prince of the usual kind. But the seventh wife, who has been able to obtain as her share only the stone of one of the mangoes, "had a monkey, who was called in consequence Bandarsábásá, or Prince Monkey." In reality, the story-teller goes on to explain, "he was a boy, but no one knew it, for he had a monkey-skin covering him." And this monkey-skin he takes off when he wishes to appear in true princely form, as when he woos and wins the Princess Jahúran. Finding out what his real nature is, she insists upon marrying him, in spite of her vexed father's natural question: "Who ever heard of any one marrying a nasty monkey?" When he is alone with his wife he takes off his monkey-skin, and reveals himself in all his beauty, replying to her questions as to its use, "I wear it as a protection, because my brothers are naughty, and would kill me if they knew what I really am." On one occasion, when he has gone in state to a nautch, after taking off his monkey skin, folding it up, and laying it under his wife's pillow, she reveals her husband's secret to his mother, who, "though she was very glad her monkey-son had such a wife, could never understand how it was that her daughter-in-law was so happy with him." Taking the monkey-skin from under her pillow, "See," she says, "when your son puts this on, then he is a monkey; when he takes it off he is a beautiful man. And now I think I will burn this skin, and then he must always be a man." So she throws it into the fire. Prince Monkey's heart instantly tells him his wife has burnt his skin, and he returns home in a rage. It passes off, however, and all goes well. He now appears always as a beautiful prince, "with his hair all gold." "Why did you wear that monkey-skin?" naturally asks his father. "Because," he replies, "my mother ate the mango-stone instead of eating the mango, and so I was born with this skin, and God ordered me to wear it till I had found a wife." The story has evidently been considerably altered in the course of time from its original form, but it still keeps true to its ancient lines. In it, as in many other specimens of the same class, the idea of the degradation of a divine or semi-divine being has been lost, and the sufferer is merely a human being cased in a disfiguring hide. It is noteworthy that, as we are informed at p. 259, Dunkní, the narrator of the tale, "in telling this husk-story, just as often called the monkey-skin a husk, as she called it a skin."