The Match-making Jackal

Once on a time there lived a weaver, whose ancestors were very rich,

but whose father had wasted the property which he had inherited

in riotous living. He was born in a palace-like house, but he now

lived in a miserable hut. He had no one in the world, his parents

and all his relatives having died. Hard by the hut was the lair of a

jackal. The jackal, remembering the wealth and grandeur of the weaver's

forefathers, had compassion on him, and one day coming to him, said,

"Friend weaver, I see what a wretched life you are leading. I have

a good mind to improve your condition. I'll try and marry you to

the daughter of the king of this country." "I become the king's

son-in-law!" replied the weaver; "that will take place only when the

sun rises in the west." "You doubt my power?" rejoined the jackal;

"you will see, I'll bring it about."

The next morning the jackal started for the king's city, which

was many miles off. On the way he entered a plantation of the

Piper betel plant, and plucked a large quantity of its leaves. He

reached the capital, and contrived to get inside the palace. On the

premises of the palace was a tank in which the ladies of the king's

household performed their morning and afternoon ablutions. At the

entrance of that tank the jackal laid himself down. The daughter of

the king happened to come just at the time to bathe, accompanied

by her maids. The princess was not a little struck at seeing the

jackal lying down at the entrance. She told her maids to drive

the jackal away. The jackal rose as if from sleep, and instead

of running away, opened his bundle of betel-leaves, put some into

his mouth, and began chewing them. The princess and her maids were

not a little astonished at the sight. They said among themselves,

"What an uncommon jackal is this! From what country can he have

come? A jackal chewing betel-leaves! why thousands of men and women

of this city cannot indulge in that luxury. He must have come from

a wealthy land." The princess asked the jackal, "Sivalu! [38] from

what country do you come? It must be a very prosperous country where

the jackals chew betel-leaves. Do other animals in your country chew

betel-leaves?" "Dearest princess," replied the jackal, "I come from a

land flowing with milk and honey. Betel-leaves are as plentiful in my

country as the grass in your fields. All animals in my country--cows,

sheep, dogs--chew betel-leaves. We want no good thing." "Happy is the

country," said the princess, "where there is such plenty, and thrice

happy the king who rules in it!" "As for our king," said the jackal,

"he is the richest king in the world. His palace is like the heaven

of Indra. I have seen your palace here; it is a miserable hut compared

to the palace of our king." The princess, whose curiosity was excited

to the utmost pitch, hastily went through her bath, and going to the

apartments of the queen-mother, told her of the wonderful jackal lying

at the entrance of the tank. Her curiosity being excited, the jackal

was sent for. When the jackal stood in the presence of the queen, he

began munching the betel-leaves. "You come," said the queen, "from

a very rich country. Is your king married?" "Please your majesty,

our king is not married. Princesses from distant parts of the world

tried to get married to him, but he rejected them all. Happy will

that princess be whom our king condescends to marry!" "Don't you

think, Sivalu," asked the queen, "that my daughter is as beautiful

as a Peri, and that she is fit to be the wife of the proudest king

in the world?" "I quite think," said the jackal, "that the princess

is exceedingly handsome; indeed, she is the handsomest princess I

have ever seen; but I don't know whether our king will have a liking

for her." "Liking for my daughter!" said the queen, "you have only to

paint her to him as she is, and he is sure to turn mad with love. To be

serious, Sivalu, I am anxious to get my daughter married. Many princes

have sought her hand, but I am unwilling to give her to any of them,

as they are not the sons of great kings. But your king seems to be a

great king. I can have no objection to making him my son-in-law." The

queen sent word to the king, requesting him to come and see the

jackal. The king came and saw the jackal, heard him describe the

wealth and pomp of the king of his country, and expressed himself

not unwilling to give away his daughter in marriage to him.

The jackal after this returned to the weaver and said to him, "O lord

of the loom, you are the luckiest man in the world; it is all settled;

you are to become the son-in-law of a great king. I have told them that

you are yourself a great king, and you must behave yourself as one. You

must do just as I instruct you, otherwise your fortune will not only

not be made, but both you and I will be put to death." "I'll do just as

you bid me," said the weaver. The shrewd jackal drew in his own mind a

plan of the method of procedure he should adopt, and after a few days

went back to the palace of the king in the same manner in which he had

gone before, that is to say, chewing betel-leaves and lying down at

the entrance of the tank on the premises of the palace. The king and

queen were glad to see him, and eagerly asked him as to the success of

his mission. The jackal said, "In order to relieve your minds I may

tell you at once that my mission has been so far successful. If you

only knew the infinite trouble I have had in persuading his Majesty,

my sovereign, to make up his mind to marry your daughter, you would

give me no end of thanks. For a long time he would not hear of it, but

gradually I brought him round. You have now only to fix an auspicious

day for the celebration of the solemn rite. There is one bit of advice,

however, which I, as your friend, would give you. It is this. My master

is so great a king that if he were to come to you in state, attended

by all his followers, his horses and his elephants, you would find it

impossible to accommodate them all in your palace or in your city. I

would therefore propose that our king should come to your city, not

in state, but in a private manner; and that you send to the outskirts

of your city your own elephants, horses, and conveyances, to bring

him and only a few of his followers to your palace." "Many thanks,

wise Sivalu, for this advice. I could not possibly make accommodation

in my city for the followers of so great a king as your master is. I

should be very glad if he did not come in state; and trust you will

use your influence to persuade him to come in a private manner; for I

should be ruined if he came in state." The jackal then gravely said, "I

will do my best in the matter," and then returned to his own village,

after the royal astrologer had fixed an auspicious day for the wedding.

On his return the jackal busied himself with making preparations for

the great ceremony. As the weaver was clad in tatters, he told him

to go to the washermen of the village and borrow from them a suit

of clothes. As for himself, he went to the king of his race, and

told him that on a certain day he would like one thousand jackals to

accompany him to a certain place. He went to the king of crows, and

begged that his corvine majesty would be pleased to allow one thousand

of his black subjects to accompany him on a certain day to a certain

place. He preferred a similar petition to the king of paddy-birds.

At last the great day arrived. The weaver arrayed himself in the

clothes which he had borrowed from the village washermen. The jackal

made his appearance, accompanied by a train of a thousand jackals,

a thousand crows, and a thousand paddy-birds. The nuptial procession

started on their journey, and towards sundown arrived within two

miles of the king's palace. There the jackal told his friends,

the thousand jackals, to set up a loud howl; at his bidding the

thousand crows cawed their loudest; while the hoarse screechings of

the thousand paddy-birds furnished a suitable accompaniment. The

effect may be imagined. They all together made a noise the like

of which had never been heard since the world began. While this

unearthly noise was going on, the jackal himself hastened to the

palace, and asked the king whether he thought he would be able to

accommodate the wedding-party, which was about two miles distant, and

whose noise was at that moment sounding in his ears. The king said

"Impossible, Sivalu; from the sound of the procession I infer there

must be at least one hundred thousand souls. How is it possible to

accommodate so many guests? Please, so arrange that the bridegroom

only will come to my house." "Very well," said the jackal; "I told

you at the beginning that you would not be able to accommodate all

the attendants of my august master. I'll do as you wish. My master

will alone come in undress. Send a horse for the purpose." The jackal,

accompanied by a horse and groom, came to the place where his friend

the weaver was, thanked the thousand jackals, the thousand crows,

and the thousand paddy-birds, for their valuable services, and told

them all to go away, while he himself, and the weaver on horseback,

wended their way to the king's palace. The bridal party, waiting in

the palace, were greatly disappointed at the personal appearance of

the weaver; but the jackal told them that his master had purposely

put on a mean dress, as his would-be father-in-law declared himself

unable to accommodate the bridegroom and his attendants coming in

state. The royal priests now began the interesting ceremony, and the

nuptial knot was tied for ever. The bridegroom seldom opened his lips,

agreeably to the instructions of the jackal, who was afraid lest

his speech should betray him. At night when he was lying in bed he

began to count the beams and rafters of the room, and said audibly,

"This beam will make a first-rate loom, that other a capital beam,

and that yonder an excellent sley." The princess, his bride, was not

a little astonished. She began to think in her mind, "Is the man,

to whom they have tied me, a king or a weaver? I am afraid he is

the latter; otherwise why should he be talking of weaver's loom,

beam, and sley? Ah, me! is this what the fates keep in store for

me?" In the morning the princess related to the queen-mother the

weaver's soliloquy. The king and queen, not a little surprised at

this recital, took the jackal to task about it. The ready-witted

jackal at once said, "Your Majesty need not be surprised at my august

master's soliloquy. His palace is surrounded by a population of seven

hundred families of the best weavers in the world, to whom he has given

rent-free lands, and whose welfare he continually seeks. It must have

been in one of his philanthropic moods that he uttered the soliloquy

which has taken your Majesty by surprise." The jackal, however,

now felt that it was high time for himself and the weaver to decamp

with the princess, since the proverbial simplicity of his friend of

the loom might any moment involve him in danger. The jackal therefore

represented to the king, that weighty affairs of state would not permit

his august master to spend another day in the palace; that he should

start for his kingdom that very day with his bride; and his master was

resolved to travel incognito on foot, only the princess, now the queen,

should leave the city in a palki. After a great deal of yea and nay,

the king and queen at last consented to the proposal. The party came

to the outskirts of the weaver's village; the palki bearers were sent

away; and the princess, who asked where her husband's palace was,

was made to walk on foot. The weaver's hut was soon reached, and the

jackal, addressing the princess, said, "This, madam, is your husband's

palace." The princess began to beat her forehead with the palms of her

hands in sheer despair. "Ah, me! is this the husband whom Prajapati

[39] intended for me? Death would have been a thousand times better."

As there was nothing for it, the princess soon got reconciled to her

fate. She, however, determined to make her husband rich, especially as

she knew the secret of becoming rich. One day she told her husband to

get for her a pice-worth of flour. She put a little water in the flour,

and smeared her body with the paste. When the paste dried on her body,

she began wiping the paste with her fingers; and as the paste fell in

small balls from her body, it got turned into gold. She repeated this

process every day for some time, and thus got an immense quantity of

gold. She soon became mistress of more gold than is to be found in

the coffers of any king. With this gold she employed a whole army of

masons, carpenters and architects, who in no time built one of the

finest palaces in the world. Seven hundred families of weavers were

sought for and settled round about the palace. After this she wrote

a letter to her father to say that she was sorry he had not favoured

her with a visit since the day of her marriage, and that she would be

delighted if he now came to see her and her husband. The king agreed

to come, and a day was fixed. The princess made great preparations

against the day of her father's arrival. Hospitals were established in

several parts of the town for diseased, sick, and infirm animals. The

beasts in thousands were made to chew betel-leaves on the wayside. The

streets were covered with Cashmere shawls for her father and his

attendants to walk on. There was no end of the display of wealth and

grandeur. The king and queen arrived in state, and were infinitely

delighted at the apparently boundless riches of their son-in-law. The

jackal now appeared on the scene, and saluting the king and queen,

said--"Did I not tell you?"

Here my story endeth,

The Natiya-thorn withereth, etc.

1 A name for a jackal, not unlike Reynard in Europe.

2 The god who presides over marriages.