In a certain city there are a man and his daughter, it is said. The man’s wife being dead, the girl cooks food for the man. The man cuts jungle at a chena clearing. The girl every day having cooked, and placed the food ready for her father, goes to rock in a golden swing.1 Then a Mahage2 comes and says, “Daughter, give me a little fire.” The girl sitting in the swing says, “Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.” The Mahage goes into the house, pulls out and takes the things which that girl has cooked and placed there, and having eaten, carries away the fire.

So, after two or three days had passed in that manner, the man asked, “Who, daughter, while I am coming home has eaten the rice that you have cooked and placed for me?”

Then the girl said, “I don’t know, father. Every day when I have cooked the food and placed it ready for you, and gone to rock in the golden swing, a Mahage comes and begs fire from me. Then I say, ‘Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.’ It will be the Mahage.”

Then the man, having said, “Ha. Daughter, cook and arrange the food to-day also, and go to the golden swing,” got onto the shelf, and stayed there.

Afterwards the girl, having cooked and placed the food exactly as on other days, went to the golden swing. Then the Mahage having come on that day also, begged, “Daughter, give me a little fire.” The girl said, “Is it here with me? It is at the hearth; take it.”

Then the Mahage having gone into the house, and drawn out the pots, and eaten part of the rice, when she was about to rise after taking the fire, the man on the shelf asked, “What is that you have been doing?”

The Mahage said, “What indeed! Why don’t you invite me [to be your wife]?”

The man said, “Ha. Stop here.” So the woman stayed.

After a great many days had passed, the woman lay down. “What are you lying down for?” asked the man.

The woman said, “It is in my mind to eat your daughter’s two eyes.”

Afterwards the man called the girl, and said, “Daughter, a yoke of cattle are missing; let us go and seek them.” While he went with the girl, taking a cord, the dog also followed behind.

Having gone into a great forest, he said, “Daughter, come here in order that I may look at your head.”3 While he was looking and looking at it, the girl fell asleep. Then the man placed the girl against a tree, and tied her to it; and having cut out her two eyes, came home and placed one on the shelf and one in the salt pot. The dog that went with the man having come home, howled, rolling about in the open space in front of the house.

There was also a child. That little one having gone somewhere, on coming back bringing a mango, asked that Mahage, “Loku-Amma, give me a knife.” The woman said, “Have I got one here? It is on the shelf; get it.”

Then the child, going into the house, and putting his hand on the shelf, caught hold of the eye placed there by the man, and said, “This is indeed our elder sister’s eye. Loku-Amma, give me a piece of salt.”

The woman said, “Have I got any here? Take it from the salt pot.”

When the child put his hand into the salt pot the other eye was there. He took it also. When he stepped down from the veranda of the house into the compound, the dog went in front, and the child followed after him.

Having gone on and on, the dog came to the place in the great forest where the girl was, and stopped there. When the child looked, his elder sister was tied to the tree. He saw that red ants were biting her from her eyes downward, and having quickly unfastened her he took her to a tank, and bathed her. Then taking both her eyes in his hand, he said, “If these are our elder sister’s eyes, may they be created afresh,” and threw them down. After that, they were created better than before.

Afterwards the girl said, “Younger brother, we cannot go again to that house. Let us go away somewhere.” So they went off. While they were going along the road, a King was coming on horseback, tossing and tossing up a golden Kaekiri fruit. The child, after looking at it, said, “Elder sister, ask for the golden Kaekiri.”

The girl replied, “Appa! Younger brother, he will kill both of us. Come on without speaking.”

Then the child another time said, “Elder sister, ask for it and give me it.”

The King having heard it, asked, “What, Bola, is that one saying?”

The girl replied, “O Lord, nothing at all.”

“It was not nothing at all. Tell me,” the King said a second time.

Then the girl replied, “O Lord, I am much afraid to say it. He is asking for that golden Kaekiri.”

The King said, “I will give the golden Kaekiri if thou wilt give me thy elder sister.”

The child said, “Elder sister and I, both of us, will come.”

So the King, having placed the girl on horseback, went to his city with the child, and married the girl.

After many days had passed, when the King was about to go to a war the girl was near her confinement. So the King said, “If it be a girl, shake an iron chain. If it be a boy, shake a silver chain.” Afterwards the girl bore a boy, and shook a silver chain.

Before the King came back, the girl’s father and Loku-Amma (step-mother), having collected cobras’ eggs, polangas’4 eggs, and the like, the eggs of all kinds of snakes, and having cooked cakes made of them, came to the place where the girl was.

The girl’s Loku-Amma told her to eat some of the cakes. When she did not eat them, that woman, taking some in her hand, came to her and rubbed some on her mouth. At that very moment the girl became a female cobra, and dropped down into a hole in an ant-hill. Her father and Loku-Amma went home again. The infant was crying on the bed.

Afterwards, when the girl’s younger brother was saying to the golden Kaekiri:—

the cobra returned [in her woman’s form], and having suckled and bathed the infant, and sent it to sleep, again [becoming a snake] goes back to the ant-hill.

Then the King having returned, asked the younger brother, “Where, Bola, is thy elder sister?”

The child said, “Our father and Loku-Amma having cooked a sort of cakes came and gave us them, and Loku-Amma told elder sister to eat. Afterwards, as she did not eat, Loku-Amma, taking some, rubbed them on elder sister’s mouth. At that very moment elder sister became a female cobra, and dropped down into an ant-hill.”

Then the King asked, “Did she not return again, after she had dropped down into the ant-hill?”

The child replied, “While I was calling her she came back once.”

The King said, “Call her again in that very way.”

So the boy said to the golden Kaekiri,

Afterwards, the cobra came [in her woman’s form], and having suckled and bathed the child, and sent it to sleep, cooked for the King, and apportioned the food for him.

Then when she tried to go away [in her cobra form], the King cut the cobra in two with his sword. One piece dropped down into the ant-hill; the other piece became the Queen, and remained there.

After that, the King collected cobras, polangas, all kinds of snakes, and having, with the Queen, put them into two corn measures, they took the two boxes, and went to the house where the Queen’s father and Loku-Amma were. There they gave them the two boxes, and said, “We have brought presents for you. Go into the house, and having shut the door, and lowered the bolt, open the mouths of the two boxes. Otherwise, do not open the mouths in the light.” The King and Queen remained outside.

The Queen’s father and Loku-Amma, taking the two boxes, went into the house, and having shut the door and bolted it, opened the mouths of the two boxes. At that moment, the snakes that were in them came out, and bit both of them, and both of them died.

Afterwards, the King and Queen came to the city, and stayed there.

North-western Province.