VI. The Rishi and the Brahman
XVII. The King and the Water-Goddesses
XVIII. The Lid of the Sacred Casket
XIX. The Brahman Wife and Her Seven Sons
XX. The Golden Temple

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Gave memorial honours to his dead father"
"It curled itself up inside the earthen jar"
"And fill her lap with wheat cakes and bits of cocoa-nut"
"And stuck them into a corner of the eaves"
"They no longer wished to kill or bite the little daughter-in-law"
"They asked her what the reason was, and she told them"
"She has lived here just as if she had been in her father's house"
"The god revealed himself to the king and his companions in all his
glory and splendour"

CHAPTER I

The Sunday Story

When Englishmen and Englishwomen are little boys and girls, they
listen with open ears to the tales of Golden-hair and the three Bears,
of Cinderella and the Prince, and of the Wolf and Little Red Riding
Hood. As the boys and girls grow up, the stories fade gradually from
their minds. But a time comes when they have children of their own. And
then, to amuse the children, they can find no tales more thrilling
than those which fascinated them in their own childhood. Thus the
old nursery tales are handed down for centuries from generation to
generation. Exactly the same process goes on in India, There, too, when
little Indian boys and girls grow up and have little boys and girls of
their own, they too tell to wide-eyed audiences the tales which they
themselves found so thrilling in their own childhood. Indian nursery
tales, it is true, have a more religious tinge than those of Europe,
but they are none the less appreciated on that account. The first six
stories in this little book purport to explain the connexion between
the heavenly bodies and the days of the week. So each day of the week
has its separate tale. And all through Shravan or August, probably
because it is the wettest month in the year, Deccan mothers tell afresh
every week-day that day's story. And little Deccan children listen
to the tales as they fall due with the same unvarying attention. For
in nurseries, Indian as well as English, tales are loved the better
when no longer new, and where the end is well known to, and therefore
the better understood by, the tiny round-eyed listeners.

Now this is the tale which is told every Sunday [2] in Shravan: Once
upon a time there was a town called Atpat, and in it there lived a
poor Brahman.