October 6. Story of the Day: Jar of Ghee

This story comes from Indian Fairy Tales by Maive Stokes. This incident is part of a longer story called "The Story of Foolish Sachuli."

It is an example of ATU 1430 Air Castles.

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JAR OF GHEE

A sepoy came by with a large jar of ghee on his head. “How heavy this jar is,” said the sepoy. “Is there no cooly that will come and carry my ghee home for me? I would give him four pice for his trouble.”

Up jumped Sachúlí. “I’ll carry it for you,” said he.

So Sachúlí put the jar on his head, and he went on, with the sepoy following.

“Now,” said Sachúlí, “with these four pice I will buy a hen, and I will sell the hen and her eggs, and with the money I get for them I will buy a goat; and then I will sell the goat and her milk and her hide and buy a cow, and I will sell her milk; and then I will marry a wife, and then I shall have some children, and they will say to me, ‘Father, will you have some rice?’ and I will say, ‘No, I won’t have any rice.’” And as he said, “No, I won’t have any rice,” he shook his head, and down came the jar of ghee, and the jar was smashed, and the ghee spilled.

“Oh, dear! what have you done?” cried the sepoy.

“Why did you shake your head?”

“Because my children asked me to have some rice, and I did not want any, so I shook my head,” said Sachúlí.

“Oh,” said the sepoy, “he is an utter idiot.”

(sepoy)

NOTES

Foolish Sachúlí lives in many lands. In his Russian dress he figures in “The Fool and the Birch-tree,” Ralston’s Russian Folk Tales, p. 52. In the Sicilian “Giufá” we find him again (Gonzenbach’s Sicilianische Maerchen, vol. I. p. 249). In England he appears in an out-of-the-way village in the south (see Pall Mall Budget, July 12, 1878, p. 11, Wild Life in a Southern Country, No. XIV.) with, to use his mother’s words, “no more sense than God had given him.” She wishing to have his testimony discredited when he bears witness against her, as she knows he will, goes upstairs and rains raisins on [258]him from the window. So when asked to specify the time he speaks of, he says, “When it rained raisins,” and is of course disbelieved.

Note by Mr. J. F. Campbell: “This story of a stupid boy has a parallel in a Gaelic tale in my collection, where the boy dated an event which was true by a fall of pancakes or something of the kind which was not true, and was not believed though he told the truth.” [At p. 385, vol. II. of the Tales of the West Highlands a “half booby” is inveigled by his mother into dating his theft of some planks by a “shower of milk-porridge.”]