Thousand & One Nights: Five: The Story of A Young Bull contd

On the fifth night, the art of story telling by Shahrazad began:
The old man with the deer said to the demon and to his companions: 

I took the knife and I turned to slaughter my son, he wept, and bellowed, rolled at my feet, and motioned towards me with his tongue.  I suspected something, began to  waver with trepidation and pity, and finally released him, saying to my wife, "I have decided to spare him, and I commit him to your care." Then I tried to appease and please my wife, this very deer by slaughtering another bull, and promising her to slaughter this one next season.  We slept that night, when the dwan broke, the shepherd came to me, and confided me, " Give me a credit for bringing you good news." I replied, "Tell me, the credit is yours." 
"Master, My daughter is fond of soothsaying and magic and she is adept at the art of oaths and spells.  Yesterday I took home with me the bull you had spared, to let him graze with cattle, and when my daughter saw him, she laughed first, and then cried. I asked her why the laugh and cry, and she answered that she laughed because the bull was in reality the son of our master, put under spell by his stepmother. And she cried because his father had slaughtered the son's mother.  I could hardly wait till daybreak to bring you the good news about your son."

Demon, when I heard that I uttered a cry and fainted.  When I came to myself, I accompanied the shepherd to his home, went to my son, and threw myself at him, kissing and crying.  He turned his head towards me, his tears coursing over his cheeks, and dangled his tongue, as if to say, "Look at my plight." I turned to the shepherd's daughter and asked, "Can you release him from the spell? If you do, I will give you all my cattle and all my possessions.  She smiled and replied, "Master, I have no desire for your wealth, cattle, or possessions.  I will deliver him, but on two conditions: First that you let me live with him; second that you let me cast a spell on her who had cast a spell on him, in order to control her and guard against her evil power." I replied, "Do, whatever you wish and more. My possessions are for you and my son.  As for my wife, who has done this to my son and made me slaughter his mother her life is forfeit to you."  She said, "No, but I will let her taste what she has inflicted on others."  Then the shepherd's daughter filled a bowl with water, uttered an incantation and an oath, and said to my son, "Bull, if you have been created in this image by God stay as you are, but if you have been treacherously put under a spell, change back to your human form by the will of God."  Then she sprinkled him with water, and he shook himself and changed from a bull to his human form.

As I rushed to him, I fainted, and when I came to myself, he told me what my wife, this very deer had done to him, and his mother.  I said to him, "Son, God has sent us someone who will pay her back for what you, your mother and I had suffered at her hands."

Then, O demon, I gave my son to a shepherd's daughter, who turned my wife into this very deer, saying to me,
"To me this is a pretty form, for she will be with us day and night, and it is better to turn her into a pretty deer than to suffer her sinister looks." Thus she stayed with us while the nights and days followed one another, and months and years went by.  Then one day she died, and my son went to the country of this very man with whom you have had your encounter. Some time later I took my wife, this very deer with me, set out to find out what happened to my son, and chanced to stop here.  This is my story, my strange and amazing story.

The demon assented saying, "I grant you one third of this man's life."

The second old man with two black dogs approached the demon. "I too shall tell you what happened to me, and to these two dogs, and will you give me one third of his life, if you find my story more stranger?" Said the second old man.

It was dawn, and Shahrazad was to leave to attend the matters of Princely office.




End of the Section 

Note:- The shepherd's daughter does not seek the permission of her father in accepting the Cattle owner's son. That means patriarchal authority was absent. Cattle owner's status is higher than that of Shepherd, and the daughter was class conscious and sought an upper class man. In the union of lovers parents had least voice.







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