Once a girl was born with a curse that she would marry her own son. As soon as she hears the curse, she vows to escape the fate by secluding herself in the dense forest, eating only fruits and foreswearing all male company. But when she attains puberty, as fate would have it, she eats a mango from a tree under which a passing king has urinated. The mango impregnates her; bewildered, she gives birth to a male child; she wraps the baby in a piece of her sari and throws him into a nearby stream. The child is picked up by a childless king of the next kingdom, and brings him up as a handsome young adventurous prince. One day the young prince comes hunting in the same jungle where the cursed woman lives. They fall in love. She tells herself her son is longer alive and she can marry the boy she is in love with. She marries him and bears his child. According to the custom, the father’s swaddling clothes are preserved and brought out for the new born son. When the prince’s swaddling clothes brought out she recognizes her sari, with which she had swaddled her first son, now her husband and understands her fate had really caught up with her.
She waits till everyone is asleep and sings her lullaby to her new born baby:
Sleep
O Son
O grandson
O brother to my husband
Sleep o sleep
Sleep well
She then hangs herself by the sari twisted into a rope.

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Story collected by : Vidya kamat

Location: Karnataka
Source: “The Indian Oedipus” (pp109-136),  by A. K. Ramanujan, Vishnu on Freud’s Desk. Ed by J. Kripal, & T. G Vaidyanathan, Oxford University Press, 1999

There were seven suns in the creation.
Therefore the globe was very hot.
One and all were upset because of the hotness of seven suns.

One day, the seven Munda brothers conversed,
“The earth is so hot for the seven suns. If we kill the sun, the earth will be calm.”
They shot arrows towards the suns and killed six.
The seventh sun bolted from the arrow of the seventh brother and concealed itself behind the hill.

The entire world was caught in the darkness of the nightfall. The animals and birds in the forest sat in a meeting and decided to get back the light. They explored for light. But where would they get the light without the sun? They were troubled.

The bunny rabbit snooped and heard the worries of the animals and birds.
He said, “There is a sun still thriving, hiding afraid of the human being.
If you call him, he may come back and appear.

Tiger, the king of the forest called the sun.
But the sun did not turn up.

Other birds and animals tried to get the sun by calling him.
But the Sun did not listen to them.

The rooster hesitatingly asked, “May I call once?”
The birds and animals giggled at the rooster.
Tiger, the king said, “Let him try once. Maybe, the sun will come in response to his call.”

Facing towards the hill that the sun had taken shelter behind, the rooster called the sun

Kok re Kak.

The sun seemed to peek out from the other side of the hill.
Encouraged, the rooster called again, Kok re Kok

This time the sun looked up a little more.
The rooster called a third time, Kok re Kok.
Now the whole sun arose out of the hill and looked at the sky.
The sky and earth were bursting with light.
The Munda brothers understood their mistake and started adoring the Sun.

(This is a Munda oral tale collected from the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha. The illustration that goes with the story is based on the Id Tal style of traditional painting practiced by the Saora tribe. The original story is told in Munda language. Dr Mahendra Kumar Mishra, a folklorist who has authored several books on the oral traditions of the tribes of Odisha has translated it into English.)
STORY COLLECTED BY: Mahendra Kumar Mishra
LOCATION: Odisha
IMAGE CREDIT: Emam Gomanga, a teacher from the Saora tribe who paints in the Id tal style

Dr Mahendra Kumar Mishra is a noted Folklorist of India and is the author of Oral Epics of Kalahandi. He has set up Community Digital Archives in tribal areas in Odisha. He is the initiator of multicultural education in Odisha using folklore in primary schools. Dr Mishra is also the Chief Editor Lokaratna , an e-journal for Folklore Foundation, Bhubaneswar , Orissa in collaboration with the Dspace of Cambridge University, UK and National Folklore Support Center, Chennai. Dr Mishra is also the author of Folktale of Odisha published by the National Book Trust of India. He can be contacted at mkmfolk@gmail.com.
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Once there was a wizened old jogi who lived in a forest. He was very virtuous and kind, and there was no soul who received any harm on account of him. One day it so happened that a party of jogis was chasing a cobra in the forest. Fleeing before his hunters, the cobra came to the old jogi to seek refuge with him and said “A party of jogis is chasing me. Please find a way to hide me.” The jogi asked, “Where can I hide a big, giant snake like you?” The snake replied, “Open your mouth wide and I will go inside your belly. Once those searching for me are gone, I will come out.” The kind jogi trusted the snake’s word. He opened his mouth and the cobra went inside his belly.

The jogis chasing the cobra searched around, and went away when they could not find the snake. The cobra was feeling very cool and comfortable inside the jogi’s belly and did not come out. And the belly grew day by day but the cobra forgot all about his promise and remained inside.

One day the jogi was fast asleep and his mouth was wide open. Deciding to enjoy some fresh air, the cobra extended his head from the jogi’s mouth. It so happened that a cat was sitting close-by, and seeing the cobra’s head protrude out of the jogi’s mouth, she crept near stealthily. Striking like lightning, the cat caught the cobra’s head in her mouth and pulled him out whole. With her sharp claws she killed the cobra in no time.

The jogi had now awakened. Seeing the cobra lying he dead highly commended the cat, and said, “Mother Cat, from today onwards you shall be the snake’s enemy. I grant you the freedom. Now you should leave the forest and go and live among humans. Everyone shall eat your leavings and what you jump over no one will eat.*”
Hearing these words, the cat prepared to depart to live among the humans. At the time of departure the jogi stroked the cat and as the fingers of his fingers were smeared with black colour, the cat’s fur was marked with black lines running across its body. From that day every cat has carried a black line and every cat is an enemy of the snake.

(*The jogi with his blessing effectively raised the cat’s status to that of a person. An animal’s leftovers are not fit to be eaten, but a person’s leftovers can be eaten. In Sindh, if a person crosses over or jumps over food it is deemed unfit for human consumption, but it can be eaten if an animal has jumped over it.)
(Translated from the Sindhi by Musharraf Ali Farooqi)
STORY COLLECTED BY: Musharraf Ali Farooqi
STORY TOLD BY: Muhammad Soomar Sheikh of taluka Badin in Lower Sindh
LOCATION: Sindh, Pakistan