being made for the marriage of the king's daughter. Several princes
had come from far-off countries to compete for her hand, and the king
had erected a splendid pavilion for the royal betrothal. But he would
not himself choose a prince to be his daughter's husband. He ordered
that a garland should be placed on a she-elephant's trunk, and that
the prince round whose neck the she-elephant threw the garland should
be chosen to marry the king's daughter. But the she-elephant passed
by all the princes in turn, until she came to where the Brahman
stood. For he had come with the crowds of people to see the royal
betrothal. Then the she-elephant stopped and put the garland round
the Brahman's neck. The king ordered the Brahman to step forward, and
he married him to his daughter. Some years later when the princess
grew up, and she and the Brahman began to live together, she asked
her husband by what merit he had succeeded in winning her for his
wife, and he told her. And she in turn practised the same rites for
seventeen Mondays. Nine months later a beautiful baby boy was born to
her; and when he in turn grew up she told him the rites which she had
practised to obtain him. And he in turn began to perform them. On the
sixteenth Monday he set out for a journey. As he travelled in a distant
country he came to a town over which ruled a king who had no son and
only one daughter. The king had for a long time past been searching
for a beautiful and virtuous young man, resolved when he found him to
hand over to him his kingdom and marry him to his daughter. As the
Brahman's son entered the town the king saw him and noticed on him
all the marks of royal origin. So he summoned him to his house and
married him to his daughter and seated him on his own throne. Now
the next Monday was the seventeenth Monday since the Brahman's son
had begun the rites which the Apsaras had told to the priest. That
morning he got up and went to the temple and sent a message home to
his wife that she should send him five sers of flour mixed with ghee