by another more powerful than he, and obliged to fly with his wife and two children to the sea.  There, through the vile trickery of the master of a vessel, the wife was stolen and taken away to far distant lands, where she became engaged to a wealthy trader; while the exiled king and his two sons wandered in another direction, till they came to a river, in which the king was drowned.  The two boys were found by a fisherman and brought up as his own sons.  These two boys, O king, are before you, and I am their mother, who was taken away and sold to the trader, and who after two days must be married to him.  For I promised that if within a certain period I should not meet with my husband and two sons I would be his wife.  But I entreat your majesty to free me from this man.  I do not wish to marry again, now that I have found my two sons.  In order to obtain an audience of your majesty, this trick was arranged with the two youths.”

By the time the woman had finished her story the king’s face was suffused with tears and he was trembling visibly.  When he had somewhat recovered he rose from the throne and going up to the woman and the two youths embraced them long and fervently.  “You are my own dear wife and children,” he cried.  “God has sent you back to me.  I, the king, your husband, your father, was not drowned as you supposed; but was swallowed by a great fish and nourished by it for some time, and then the monster threw itself upon the river’s bank and I was extricated.  A potter and his wife had pity on me and taught me their trade, and I was just beginning to earn my living by making earthen vessels when the late king of this country died, and I was chosen king by the royal elephant and hawk—­I who am now standing here.”  Then his majesty ordered the queen and her two sons to be taken into the inner apartments of the palace, and explained his conduct to the people assembled.  The merchant was politely dismissed from the country.  And as soon as the two princes were old enough to govern the kingdom, the king committed to them the charge of all affairs, while he retired with his wife to a sequestered spot and passed the rest of his days in peace.

The tale of Sarwar and Nir, “as told by a celebrated Bard from Baraut, in the Merath district,” in vol. iii. of Captain R. C. Temple’s “Legends of the Panjab” (pp. 97-125) though differing in form somewhat from the Kashmiri version, yet possesses the leading incidents in common with it, as will be seen from the following abstract: 

Panjabiversion.

Amba the raja of Puna had a beautiful wife named Amli and two young sons, Sarwar and Nir.  There came to his court one day a fakir.  The raja promised to give him whatsoever he should desire.  The fakir required Amba to give up to him all he possessed, or lose his virtue, and the raja gave him all, save his wife and two children, receiving in return the blessings of the fakir, Then the raja and the rani