Phulmati Rani, or the Flower Lady

There were once a Raja and a Rani who had an only daughter called the
Phulmati Rani, or the Pink-rose Queen. She was so beautiful that if
she went into a very dark room it was all lighted up by her beauty. On
her head was the sun; on her hands, moons; and her face was covered
with stars. She had hair that reached to the ground, and it was made
of pure gold.

Every day after she had had her bath, her father and mother used to
weigh her in a pair of scales. She only weighed one flower. She ate
very, very little food. This made her father most unhappy, and he
said, "I cannot let my daughter marry any one who weighs more than one
flower." Now, God loved this girl dearly, so he went down under the
ground to see if any of the fairy Rajas was fit to be the Phulmati
Rani's husband, and he thought none of them good enough. So he went in
the form of a Fakir to see the great Indrasan Raja who ruled over all
the other fairy Rajas. This Raja was exceedingly beautiful. On his
head was the sun; and on his hands, moons; and on his face, stars. God
made him weigh very little. Then he said to the Raja, "Come up with
me, and we will go to the palace of the Phulmati Rani." God had told
the Raja that he was God and not a Fakir, for he loved the Indrasan
Raja. "Very well," said the Indrasan Raja. So they travelled on until
they came to the Phulmati Rani's palace. When they arrived there they
pitched a tent in her compound, and they used to walk about, and
whenever they saw the Phulmati Rani they looked at her. One day they
saw her having her hair combed, so God said to the Indrasan Raja, "Get
a horse and ride where the Phulmati Rani can see you, and if any one
asks you who you are, say, 'Oh, it's only a poor Fakir, and I am his
son. We have come to stay here a little while just to see the country.
We will go away very soon.'" Well, he got a horse and rode about, and
Phulmati Rani, who was having her hair combed in the verandah, said,
"I am sure that must be some Raja; only see how beautiful he is." And
she sent one of her servants to ask him who he was. So the servant
said to the Indrasan Raja, "Who are you? why are you here? what do you
want?" "Oh, it's only a poor Fakir, and I am his son. We have just
come here for a little while to see the country. We will go away very
soon." So the servants returned to the Phulmati Rani and told her what
the Indrasan Raja had said. The Phulmati Rani told her father about
this. The next day, when the Phulmati Rani and her father were
standing in the verandah, God took a pair of scales and weighed the
Indrasan Raja in them. His weight was only that of one flower! "Oh,"
said the Raja, when he saw that, "here is the husband for the Phulmati
Rani!" The next day, after the Phulmati Rani had had her bath, her
father took her and weighed her, and he also weighed the Indrasan
Raja. And they were each the same weight. Each weighed one flower,
although the Indrasan Raja was fat and the Phulmati Rani thin. The
next day they were married, and there was a grand wedding. God said he
was too poor-looking to appear, so he bought a quantity of elephants,
and camels, and horses, and cows, and sheep, and goats, and made a
procession, and came to the wedding. Then he went back to heaven, but
before he went he said to the Indrasan Raja "You must stay here one
whole year; then go back to your father and to your kingdom. As long
as you put flowers on your ears no danger will come near you." (This
was in order that the fairies might know that he was a very great Raja
and not hurt him.) "All right," said the Indrasan Raja. And God went
back to heaven.

So the Indrasan Raja stayed for a whole year. Then he told the Raja,
the Phulmati Rani's father, that he wished to go back to his own
kingdom. "All right," said the Raja, and he wanted to give him horses,
and camels, and elephants. But the Indrasan Raja and the Phulmati Rani
said they wanted nothing but a tent and a cooly. Well, they set out;
but the Indrasan Raja forgot to put flowers on his ears, and after
some days the Indrasan Raja was very, very tired, so he said, "We will
sit down under these big trees and rest awhile. Our baggage will soon
be here; it is only a little way behind." So they sat down, and the
Raja said he felt so tired he must sleep. "Very well," said the Rani;
"lay your head in my lap and sleep." After a while a shoemaker's wife
came by to get some water from a tank which was close to the spot
where the Raja and Rani were resting. Now, the shoemaker's wife was
very black and ugly, and she had only one eye, and she was exceedingly
wicked. The Rani was very thirsty and she said to the woman, "Please
give me some water, I am so thirsty." "If you want any," said the
shoemaker's wife, "come to the tank and get it yourself." "But I
cannot," said the Rani, "for the Raja is sleeping in my lap." At last
the poor Rani got so very, very thirsty, she said she must have some
water; so laying the Raja's head very gently on the ground she went to
the tank. Then the wicked shoemaker's wife, instead of giving her to
drink, gave her a push and sent the beautiful Rani into the water,
where she was drowned. The shoemaker's wife then went back to the
Raja, and, taking his head on her knee, sat still until he woke. When
the Raja woke he was much frightened, and he said, "This is not my
wife. My wife was not black, and she had two eyes." The poor Raja felt
very unhappy. He said, "I am sure something has happened to my wife."
He went to the tank, and he saw flowers floating on the water and he
caught them, and as he caught them his own true wife stood before him.

They travelled on till they came to a little house. The shoemaker's
wife went with them. They went into the house and laid themselves down
to sleep, and the Raja laid beside him the flowers he had found
floating in the tank. The Rani's life was in the flowers. As soon as
the Raja and Rani were asleep, the shoemaker's wife took the flowers,
broke them into little bits, and burnt them. The Rani died
immediately, for the second time. Then the poor Raja, feeling very
lonely and unhappy, travelled on to his kingdom, and the shoemaker's
wife went after him. God brought the Phulmati Rani to life a second
time, and led her to the Indrasan Raja's gardener.

One day as the Indrasan Raja was going out hunting, he passed by the
gardener's house, and saw a beautiful girl sitting in it. He thought
she looked very like his wife, the Phulmati Rani. So he went home to
his father and said, "Father, I should like to be married to the girl
who lives in our gardener's house." "All right," said the father; "you
can be married at once." So they were married the next day.

One night the shoemaker's wife took a ram, killed it, and put some of
its blood on the Phulmati Rani's mouth while the Rani slept. The next
morning she went to the Indrasan Raja and said, "Whom have you
married? You have married a Rakshas. Just see. She has been eating
cows, and sheep, and chickens. Just come and see." The Raja went, and
when he saw the blood on his wife's mouth he was frightened, and he
thought she was really a Rakshas. The shoemaker's wife said to him,
"If you do not cut this woman in pieces, some harm will happen to
you." So the Raja took a knife and cut his beautiful wife into pieces.
He then went away very sorrowful. The Phulmati Rani's arms and legs
grew into four houses; her chest became a tank, and her head a house
in the middle of the tank; her eyes turned into two little doves; and
these five houses, the tank and the doves, were transported to the
jungle. No one knew this. The little doves lived in the house that
stood in the middle of the tank. The other four houses stood round the
tank.

One day when the Indrasan Raja was hunting by himself in the jungle he
was very tired, and he saw the house in the tank. So he said, "I will
go into that house to rest a little while, and to-morrow I will return
home to my father." So, tying his horse outside, he went into the
house and lay down to sleep. By and by, the two little birds came and
perched on the roof above his head. They began to talk, and the Raja
listened. The little husband-dove said to his wife, "This is the man
who cut his wife to pieces." And then he told her how the Indrasan
Raja had married the beautiful Phulmati Rani, who weighed only one
flower, and how the shoemaker's wife had drowned her; how God had
brought her to life again; how the shoemaker's wife had burned her;
and last of all, how the Raja himself had cut her to pieces. "And
cannot the Raja find her again?" said the little wife-dove. "Oh, yes,
he can," said her husband, "but he does not know how to do so." "But
do tell me how he can find her," said the little wife-dove. "Well,"
said her husband, "every night, at twelve o'clock, the Rani and her
servants come to bathe in the tank. Her servants wear yellow dresses,
but she wears a red one. Now, if the Raja could get all their dresses,
every one, when they lay them down and go into the tank to bathe, and
throw away all the yellow dresses one by one, keeping only the red
one, he would recover his wife."

The Raja heard all these things, and at midnight the Rani and her
servants came to bathe. The Raja lay very quiet, and after they all
had taken off their dresses and gone into the tank, he jumped up and
seized every one of the dresses,--he did not leave one of them,--and
ran away as hard as he could. Then each of the servants, who were only
fairies, screamed out, "Give me my dress! What are you doing? why do
you take it away?" Then the Raja dropped one by one the yellow dresses
and kept the red one. The fairy servants picked up the dresses, and
forsook the Phulmati Rani and ran away. The Raja came back to her with
her dress in his hand, and she said, "Oh, give me back my dress. If
you keep it I shall die. Three times has God brought me to life, but
he will bring me to life no more." The Raja fell at her feet and
begged her pardon, and they were reconciled. And he gave her back her
dress. Then they went home, and Indrasan Raja had the shoemaker's wife
cut to pieces, and buried in the jungle. And they lived happily ever
after.