So the barber went away, but the secret which he might not tell had an unfortunate effect; it made his stomach swell to an enormous size.  As the barber went along in this unhappy condition he met a Dom who asked why his stomach was so swollen.  The barber said that it was because he had shaved the Raja’s child and had seen that it had the ears of an ox.  Directly he had broken his vow and blurted out the secret, his stomach returned to its usual size.

The Dom went his way and cut down a tree and made a drum out of the wood, and went about playing on the drum and begging.  He came to the Raja’s palace and there he drummed and sang:—­

    “The son of the Raja
    Has the ears of an ox.”

When the Raja heard this, he was very angry, and swore to punish the barber who must have broken his vow.  But the Dom assured the Raja that he knew nothing about the matter; that it was the drum that sang the words and not he and that he had no idea what they meant.  So the Raja was pacified and gave the Dom a present and sent him away and the barber was not punished.

LIV.  The Child Who Knew His Father.

Once upon a time there was a girl whose parents took the greatest care that she should not be familiar with any of the young men of the village.  But in spite of their precautions she formed an intimacy with a young man and was presently found to be with child.  When this became known the villagers held a panchayat to enquire into the matter, but the girl flatly declined to give any information and her father and brothers were unable to point out the offender.  So the village elders decided to let the matter stand over till the child was born.

When the birth took place the question arose in whose name its head should be shaved; as its father was still unknown, the villagers decided that this should be settled when the child was old enough to talk.  So when the child was two or three years old and could prattle a little, the girl’s father went to the headman and paranic and asked them what was to be done.  They said that he must pay a fine to them and another to the villagers, because he had made the village unclean for so long, and give a feast to the villagers and then they would find out the father of the child and make him marry the girl; and if he refused to do this, he would be outcasted.  The unfortunate man agreed and then the jog manjhi and godet were sent to call all the men of the neighbourhood to a meeting.

They assembled in their best clothes and pagris and sat down in rows, and in the middle a circle was drawn on the ground; then prayers were offered to Chando and the child was set in the circle and told to find its father.  The child began to walk slowly along the lines of men but it did not stop till it came to its real father, who was sitting a little apart, and then it threw itself into his arms.  Thus the truth was discovered and the man married the girl and, as he was very poor, went to live in his father-in-law’s house.