122 THE INDIAN ORIGIN OF MALAY FOLK-TALES. 



There are South Indian parallels to this episode viz. 

 Xatesa Sastri's " The Story of Madana Kama Raja", 

 p. 9? foil, and "The Indian Antiquary", (vol. XVIII, 

 p. 120.) 



MUSAXG BERJAXGGUT. 



In J. R. A. S. S. B. Xo. 52 I printed with an English outline 

 the farcical tale of Musang Berjanggut. Apparently the first part 

 of that tale, where the hero does foolish things which the clever 

 peasant girl so delights him by interpreting that he marries her, 

 finds a parallel in the Laos folk-tale Sieu Savat (op. cit., p. 114) 

 but M. Finot's outline is too short for one to be certain. The 

 clever peasant-girl whose wit brings her a royal or wealthy husband 

 is common in Oriental folk-lore : — Parker's " Village Folk-Tales 

 of Ceylon," vol. Ill, pp. 112-114; Knowles' "Folk-Tales of Kash- 

 mir," 2nd ed., pp. 484 foil., Swynnerton's " Indian Xights' Enter- 

 tainment" p. 315," Arabian Xights," vol. Ill, p. 202. The separ- 

 ating of mixed grain is common in folklore (Clouston, op. cit., vol. 

 I, pp. 240-241). The story proper of the wife and her lovers 

 collected together to their confusion comes in the Sanskrit Suka- 

 saptati ( YVortham's "The Enchanted Parrot", London, Tale 

 XXXIII, p. 77) and in the tale of the virtuous Upakosa in the 

 Katha Sarit Sagara : a shorter version occurs in the Hitopadesa 

 (TTorthanr's translation, London, pp. 97-8). Xeither of these ver- 

 sions contain (a) the incident of the lover playing the part of a 

 pedestal lamp, or (b) that of the king-lover playing hobby-house 

 for his exacting mistress or (c) the entrapping of the bearded man. 

 There is a Sinhalese tale (Parker, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 222-3) con- 

 taining the episode of a woman entertaining with cakes lovers, who 

 in turn are hidden one in a loft, one on a shelf ; one of the secreted 

 lovers breaks a coconut on the bald round pate of the other as in 

 the Malay tale. Perhaps the addition in the Malay tale that the 

 bald pate represented the top of a human pedestal lamp is con- 

 nected with the fable of the cat and the candle, which occurs in 

 the originally Hindi tale, Ht. Gul. Bdkawali (vide van Honker's 

 " Le Roman de la Rose dans la litterature malaise " Tijd, L. T. L. 

 VJc., Deel LIV) : with that tale is associated the search for a rose 

 to cure the king's malady, a plot very common in Malay literature 

 derived from Indian models and apparently parodied in the quest 

 for a bearded civet-cat as a sovereign cure ! The hobby-horse 

 episode occurs in the Panchatavtra (Benfey, Leipzig 1859, IV, 6) 

 where a minister's wife makes her husband shave his head and a 

 king's wife drives her consort with a bridle. In the longer ver- 

 sion of the Hikayat BaUtiar, (Branded Tijd. T. L. VJc., Deel 

 XXXVIII, p. 230 foil.) Tale 51, an Arabian vizier bids his king 

 not devote himself to women but he himself becomes so infatuated 

 with a girl that he plays hobby-horse for her ; when the king sneers, 

 the vizier protests that his advice was intended to save from any 

 such ignominious infatuation : — Brandes compares a passage in the 

 Bustanus-Salatin, (van der Tuuk's " Maleisch Leesboek " 1863, 



Jour. Straits Branch 



