Sherani Folktales

Allah Overrules All

It is said that a certain king allowed his daughter to select her own husband, and also to go round the city to make her choice. He also gave her maiden an apple to throw at anyone preferred by the princess. While they were walking about the city, the princess glanced at a sick man, much swollen, who was crouching in a filthy place. The maiden, thinking that the princess affected him, at once threw the apple at him, and it was reported throughout the city that the princess had chosen a sick and dirty fellow. The princess felt ashamed and unable to explain that her maiden had thrown the apple without her consent.

So she committed her fate to God, and took the fellow as her husband. Her father caused the man to put on a robe and sit by her. The princess, afraid that people would jeer at her, carried her husband on her back to a jungle outside the city, and set him to sleep under a tree, while she herself sat under another tree. The sick man fell soundly asleep with his mouth open, and a snake came partly out of his mouth, leaving its tail still inside. Another snake appeared out of the root of a tree, and the two snakes talked together. That which came from the tree said to the other that it had tormented the man for a long time, but what answer could it make about this in the next world ?

The man's snake replied that it would never part from him at all, but the tree snake retorted that if anyone took leaves from its tree and gave them to the man in drink, the man's snake would come of itself out of his body, all divided into pieces. The man's snake admitted that this might be a remedy, but that the tree snake should also remember that it would be burnt if anyone should gather fuel round the tree and then set fire to it, when he would at the same time obtain the treasures of kings. After a while both snakes disappeared, one inside the man and the other into the tree root. The princess had listened to their talk, and at once cut leaves from the tree and gave her husband to drink.

The snake then came out from him, divided into pieces, and in a few days he recovered. She then gathered fuel and disposed it round the tree of the tree snake, and set fire to it. The tree snake appeared, full of sorrow, exclaiming, " He who envies his kindred reaps such a reward as this. Having brought on my kinsman's death by describing means to effect it, I am also about to be burnt alive." At last he was burnt up, and the princess and her husband dug and found the treasure. They had a fine house built, and there passed happily the rest of their lives.

Source: Sir Lucas King., Sherani Folktales

Picture Credits: International Mevlana Foundation, Switzerland

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