nth 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
Bandarsabasa, 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 Jahuran. 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, Dunkni, 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."

Another of the apparently mythological