to see the royal betrothal.  Then the she-elephant stopped and put the garland round the Brahman’s neck.  The king ordered the Brahman to step forward, and he married him to his daughter.  Some years later when the princess grew up, and she and the Brahman began to live together, she asked her husband by what merit he had succeeded in winning her for his wife, and he told her.  And she in turn practised the same rites for seventeen Mondays.  Nine months later a beautiful baby boy was born to her; and when he in turn grew up she told him the rites which she had practised to obtain him.  And he in turn began to perform them.  On the sixteenth Monday he set out for a journey.  As he travelled in a distant country he came to a town over which ruled a king who had no son and only one daughter.  The king had for a long time past been searching for a beautiful and virtuous young man, resolved when he found him to hand over to him his kingdom and marry him to his daughter.  As the Brahman’s son entered the town the king saw him and noticed on him all the marks of royal origin.  So he summoned him to his house and married him to his daughter and seated him on his own throne.  Now the next Monday was the seventeenth Monday since the Brahman’s son had begun the rites which the Apsaras had told to the priest.  That morning he got up and went to the temple and sent a message home to his wife that she should send him five sers of flour mixed with ghee and treacle.  But the queen was too proud to do this.  For she feared that the people in the street would laugh at her if she sent her husband five sers of flour mixed with ghee and treacle.  So instead she sent him five hundred rupees in a plate.  But because the flour and ghee and treacle were not sent, the king was unable to complete his ceremonial, and it was all spoilt.  And the god Shiva instead of being pleased became very angry indeed.  And he told the king that, if he kept the queen as his wife, he would lose his kingdom and die a beggar.  Next day the king sent for his chief minister and told him what had happened.  At first the minister said, “The kingdom belongs to the queen’s father.  If you drive her out your subjects will hate you.”  But the king replied, “Yes, but not to obey the god’s command is a worse thing still.”  At last the minister agreed with the king, and the order went forth that the queen should be driven out of the city.  So the queen was driven out and became quite poor and wandered along the road.  At last she came to a distant town and lodged there with an old woman, who gave her food and drink.  One day the old woman sent the queen out to sell fruit puddings.  As she went into the bazaar a great wind came and carried off the fruit puddings.  When she returned to the old woman’s house, the queen told her what had happened, and the old woman drove her out of the house.  Then she went and lodged with an oilman, who had great jars full of oil.  But one day she went and looked inside the jars, and all the oil disappeared.  So the