- Beautiful girl had three youths who wanted to marry her
Each ask for father’s blessing, said he would need time to decide who marries her
Three of them stayed around day/night
Daughter dies of fever, gets buried in cemetery; the three do different things to honor her
#1 builds hut, sleeps on bed of her ashes, begs for food
#2 went to dip her bones in the Ganges
#3 become monk, travelling different countries
Monk goes to house of a Brahman, has dinner w/ him
Monk sees a mom throw son into a fire, then Brahman brings boy back to life
Monk steals book at night, hoping to revive the daughter
#3 goes back, gathers #1/#2, brings daughter back to life
Goblin tells king to decide who her husband will be
King says “#3 acted like a father would, #2 acted like a son would, #1 acted like a husband would, so #1 should be her husband”
Goblin tells king to decide who the cleverest of the three is in the following story
Brahman has three sons, each with specialties in different luxuries
#1’s specialty is food, #2 is women, #3 is cotton
They argue and go to the King of Conqueror to decide who’s best
Conqueror gives them large dinner, #1 complains that rice dish smells of smoke and corpse (rice was grown near crematorium, so Conqueror congratulates him)
At night, Conqueror sends a woman to #2’s room; #2 complains that she smells bad (woman reveals she drank goat’s milk as a baby instead of breast milk, so Conqueror congratulates him)
Conqueror gives #3 a bed of several nice quilts; #3 is deadly uncomfortable, claiming there is a hair under the quilts (has a mark on his side that looks like a hair)
A hair matching #3’s mark is found under all the quilts
Conqueror is impressed by all, gives each of them 100,000 gold pieces
King determines #3 is the cleverest (#1/#2 could have found out their tricks beforehand)
Virtue-Banner, king of Ujjain, had three wives
Wives were named Crescent, Star, and Moon
Day of spring festival, they’re all playing in beautiful garden
VB playfully pulls Crescent’s hair, lotus petal falls
Crescent’s wounded; screams and faints
Servants tend to her, taken to the palace for remedy
VB is on balcony with Star
Star falls asleep, gets burned by moonbeams; servants tend to her
Moon leaves her room to go see VB
She can hear mortar/pestles grinding grain, is agonized by the noise
Servants take her back to room, she has bruises on hands
Servants give her cooling plaster of sandal-paste to help hands
King determines Moon is the most delicate; Crescent/Star had physical contact with their injuries, Moon did not
Story Source: Twenty-Two Goblins, translated by Arthur W. Ryder
“The Goblin in the Tree” via the Untextbook
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