At last one day he saddled and bridled one of his father’s beautiful horses. Then he put on his grand clothes, took his sword and gun, and said good-bye to his father and mother, and set out on his search. They cried very much at parting with him.

He rode from his father’s country for a long, long way. At length, when he had journeyed for six months, he found himself in a great jungle, through which he went for many nights and days, until he at last came to where a fakír lay sleeping. The young prince thought, “I will watch by this fakír till he wakes. Perhaps he can help me.” So he stayed with the fakír for one whole month; and all that time he took care of him and watched by him, and kept his hut clean.

This fakír used to sleep for six whole months at a time, and then he would remain awake for six months.

When the prince had watched over him for one month the fakír woke, for his six months’ sleep had come to an end; and when he saw what care the young prince had taken of him, and how clean his hut was, he was very much pleased with the King’s son, and said to him, “How have you been able to reach this jungle, to which no man can come? and who are you? and whence do you come?”

“I am a King’s son,” answered the prince. “My father’s country is a six months’ journey away from this; and I am come to look for a Bél-Princess. I hear there is a Bél-Princess, and I want to find her. Can you tell me where she is?”

“It is true that there is one,” answered the fakír, “and I know where she is. She is in the fairies’ country, whither no man can go.”

This made the young prince very sad. “What shall I do?” he said. “I have left my father and mother, and have travelled a long, long way to find the Bél-Princess. And now you tell me I cannot go where she lives.”

“I will help you,” said the fakír, “and if you do exactly what I tell you, you will find her. But, first, stay here with me for a little while.”

So the King’s son stayed for another month with the fakír, and took care of him, and did everything for him, as he did for his own father.

At the end of the month, the fakír gave him his stick, and said to him, “Now you must go to the fairies’ country. It is one week’s journey distant from this jungle. When you get there, you will see a number of demons and fairies who live in it.” Then the fakír took a little earth from the ground, and put it in the prince’s hand. “When you have come to the fairies’ country, in order that they and the demons may not see you, you must blow all this earth away from the palm of your hand, and then you will be invisible. You must ride on till you come to a great plain in the middle of their garden, and on this plain you will see a large bél-tree and on it one big bél-fruit. In this fruit is the Bél-Princess. You must throw my stick at it, and it will fall; but you must take care to catch the fruit in your shawl, and not let it fall to the ground. Then ride quickly back to me, for as soon as the fruit falls you will cease to be invisible, and the fairies and demons who guard the fruit will all come running after you, and they will all call to you. But take care, take care not to look behind you when they call you. Ride straight on to me with the fruit, and do not look behind you. If you do, you will become stone, and your horse too, and they will take the bél-fruit back to its tree.”

The prince promised to do all the fakír bade him. He rode for a week, and then he came to the fairies’ country. He blew the earth the fakír had given him away from his palm all along his fingers, just as he had been told, and then he became invisible. He rode through the great garden to the plain. There he saw the bél-tree, and the one fruit hanging all alone. He threw the fakír’s stick at it, and caught it in a corner of his shawl as it fell, but then he was no longer invisible. All the fairies and demons could see him, and they came running after him as he rode quickly away, and called to him. He looked behind at them, and instantly he and his horse became stone; and the bél-fruit went back to its tree and hung itself up.

For one week the fakír sat in his jungle, waiting for the King’s son. But the moment he was turned into stone, the fakír knew of it, and he set off at once for the fairies’ country. He walked all through it, but neither the fairies nor demons could touch him. He went straight to the great plain, and there he saw the King’s son sitting on his horse, and both he and the horse were stone.

This made the fakír very sad; and he said to God, “What will the father and mother do, now that their son is changed into a stone?” And he prayed to God and said, “If it be God’s pleasure, may this King’s son be alive once more.” Then he cut his little finger on the inside from the tip to the palm, and smeared the prince’s forehead with the blood that came from it. He rubbed some blood on the horse too, all the time praying to God to give the prince his life again. The King’s son and his horse were alive once more. The fakír took the prince back to his jungle, and said to him, “Listen. I told you not to look behind you, and you disobeyed me and so were turned to stone. Had I not come to save you, you would always have remained stone.”

The fakír kept the prince with him in the jungle for one whole week. Then he gave him his stick and some earth he picked up from the ground on which they were standing, and said, “Now you must go to the fairies’ country again, and throw my stick at the bél-fruit, and catch it in a corner of your shawl as you did before. But mind, mind you do not look behind you this time. If you do you will be turned to stone, and you will for ever remain stone. Ride straight back to me with the fruit, and take care never to look behind you once till you get to me.”

So the King’s son went again to the fairies’ country, and all happened as before, till he had caught the fruit in his shawl. But then he rode straight back to the fakír without looking behind him, although the fairies and demons ran after him and called to him the whole way.

He rode so fast they could not catch him, and when he came to the fakír, the fakír turned him into a fly and thus hid him. Up came all the fairies and demons and said to the fakír, “There is a thief in your hut.” “A thief! Where is the thief?” said the fakír. “Look everywhere for him, and take him away if you can find him.” Then they searched and searched everywhere, but could not find the prince; so at last they went away.

When they had all gone, the fakír took the little fly and turned it back into a King’s son. A few days afterwards he said to the prince, “Now you have found what you wanted; you have the Bél-Princess you came to seek. So go back to your father and mother.” “Very well,” said the prince. Then he got his horse all ready for the journey, took the bél-fruit, and made many salaams to the fakír, who said to him, “Now, listen. Take care not to open the fruit on the road. Wait till you are in your father’s house with your father and mother, and then open it. If you do not do exactly as I tell you, evil will happen to you; so mind you only open the fruit in your father’s house. Out of it will come the Bél-Princess.”

The prince set out on his journey, and rode on and on for six months till he came to his father’s country, and then to his father’s garden. There he sat down to rest by a well under a clump of great trees. He said to himself, “Now that I am in my father’s country, and in my father’s garden, I will sit and rest in this cool shade; and when I am rested I will go up to the palace.” He bathed his face and his hands in the well, and drank some of its water. Then he thought, “Surely, now that I am in my father’s country and in his garden, I need not wait till I get to his palace to open my bél-fruit. What harm can happen if I do open it here?”

So he broke it open, in spite of all the fakír had told him, and out of it came such a beautiful girl. She was more beautiful than any princess that ever was seen–so beautiful that the King’s son fainted when he saw her. The princess fanned him, and poured water on his face, and presently he recovered, and said to her, “Princess, I should like to sleep for a little while, for I have travelled for six months, and am very tired. After I have slept we will go together to my father’s palace.” So he went to sleep, and the princess sat by him.

Presently a woman came to the well for water, and she said to herself, “See, here is the King’s youngest son. What a lovely princess that is sitting by him! What fine clothes and jewels she has on!” And the wicked woman determined to kill the princess and to take her place. Then she came up to the beautiful girl, and sat down beside her, and talked to her. “Listen to me, princess,” she said at last. “Let us change clothes with each other. Give me yours, and I will give you mine.” The princess, thinking no harm, did as the woman suggested. “And now,” said the woman, “let me put on your beautiful jewels.” The princess gave them to her, and then the wicked, wicked woman, said to her, “Let us walk about this pretty garden, and look at the flowers, and amuse ourselves.” By and by she said, “Princess, let us go and look at ourselves in the well, and see what we look like, you in my clothes, and I in yours.” The young girl consented, and they went to the well. As they bent over the side to look in, the wicked woman gave the princess a push, and pushed her straight over the edge into the water.

Then she went and sat down by the sleeping prince, just as the princess had done. When he awoke and saw this ugly, wicked woman, instead of his Bél-Princess, he was very much surprised, and said to himself, “A little while ago I had a beautiful girl by me, and now there is such an ugly woman. It is true she has on the clothes and jewels my Bél-Princess wore; but she is so ugly, and there is something wrong with one of her eyes. What has happened to her?” Then he said to this wicked woman, whom he took for his Bél-Princess, “What is the matter with you? Has anything happened to you? Why have you become so ugly?” She answered, “Till now I have always lived in a bél-fruit. It is the bad air of your country that has made me ugly, and hurt one of my eyes.”

The prince was ashamed of her, and very, very sorry. “How shall I take her to my father’s palace now?” he thought. “My mother and all my brothers’ wives will see her, and what will they say? However, never mind; I must take her to my house, and marry her. I cannot think what can have happened to her.” Then he got a palanquin, and took her up to the palace.

His father and mother were very glad that their youngest son had come back to them; but when they saw the wicked woman, and heard she was his Bél-Princess, they, and every one else in the palace, said, “Can she be a Bél-Princess? She is not at all pretty, and she is not at all pleasant.” “She was lovely when she came out of the fruit,” said the prince. “No one ever saw such a beautiful girl before. I cannot think what has happened to her. It must be the bad air of this country that has made her so ugly.” Then he told them all about his journey to the jungle where he had met the fakír, and how, with the fakír’s help, he had found his Bél-Princess, and how he had opened the fruit in his father’s garden, and then fallen asleep.

The King made a great wedding-feast for his son, and he and the wicked woman were married, and all the time the King’s youngest son thought he was marrying the Bél-Princess.

Meanwhile, the beautiful girl had not been drowned in the well, but had changed into a most lovely pink lotus-flower. This flower was first seen by a man from the village who came to the well for water. “What a lovely lotus-flower!” said the man; “I must gather it.” But when he tried to reach it the flower floated away from him. Then he went and told all the people in the village of the beautiful flower, and then the palace servants heard of it. They all tried to gather it, but could not, for the flower always went just out of their reach. Then the King and his six elder sons heard of it, and they came to the well; but the King tried in vain to gather it, and his six sons too. The lotus-flower always floated away from them.

Last of all, the youngest prince heard of the lotus, and he grew very curious to see it, and said, “I will try if I cannot gather this wonderful flower that no one can touch.” So he, too, came to the well, and stooped, and stretched out his hand, and the minute he did so the flower floated of itself into his hand.

Then he was very happy and proud, and he took the flower up to his wife and showed it to her. “Just see,” he said, “every one in the village and the palace were talking of this lotus-flower; and every one tried to gather it; and no one could, for the flower would not let any one touch it. My father tried, and my brothers all tried, and they, too, could not gather it; but as soon as I stretched out my hand the flower floated into it of itself.”

When his wicked wife saw the flower, she said nothing; but her heart told her it was the beautiful girl she had pushed into the well. The prince laid the flower on his pillow, and was very glad and happy. As soon as he had gone out, his wife seized the lotus-flower, tore it to bits, and threw them far away into the garden.

In a few days a bél-tree was growing on the spot where she had thrown the pieces of the lotus-flower. On it grew one big bél-fruit, and it was so fine and large that every one in the village and the palace tried to gather it; but no one could touch it, for the fruit always went just out of reach. The King and his six elder sons also tried, but they could not touch it. The youngest prince heard of this fruit, so he said to his wife, “I will go and see if I can gather this bél-fruit that no one can even touch.” The wicked woman’s heart said to her, “In the bél-fruit is the Bél-Princess;” but she said nothing.

The prince went to the bél-tree; the bél-fruit came into his hand, and he broke it off the tree, and brought it home to his wife. “See,” he said, “here is the bél-fruit; it let me gather it at once.” And he was very proud and happy. Then he laid the fruit on a table in his room.

When he had gone out the wicked wife came, and took the fruit, and flung it away in the garden. In the night the fruit burst in two, and in it lay a lovely, tiny girl baby. The gardener, as he went round the garden early in the morning, found the little baby; and he wondered who had thrown away the beautiful fruit, and who the lovely baby girl could be. She was so tiny and so pretty, and the gardener was delighted when he saw her, for he had no children, and thought God had sent him a little child at last.

He took her in his arms and carried her to his wife.

“See,” he said, “we have never had any children, and now God has sent us this beautiful little girl.” His wife looked at the child, and she was as delighted with her as her husband was. “Yes,” she said, “God has sent us this child, and she is certainly most beautiful. I am very happy. But I have no milk for her; if only I had milk for her, I could nurse her and she would live.” And the gardener’s wife was very sad to think she had no milk in her breasts for the little child.

Then her husband said, “Let us ask God to send you milk for her.” So they prayed to God and worshipped him. And God was pleased with them both, and sent the gardener’s wife a great deal of milk.

The little girl now lived in the gardener’s house, and he and his wife took the greatest care of her, and were very happy to think they had now a child. She grew very fast, and became lovelier every day. She was more beautiful than any girl that had ever been seen, and all the people in the King’s country used to say, “How lovely the gardener’s daughter is! She is more beautiful than any princess.”

The King’s youngest son’s wicked wife heard of the child, and her heart told her, “She is the Bél-Princess.” She said nothing, but she often thought of how she could contrive to have her killed.

One day, when the gardener’s daughter was seven years old, she was out in her father’s garden, making a little garden of her own near the house-door. While she was busy over her flowers, the wicked woman’s cow strayed into the garden and began eating the plants in it. The little girl would not let it make its dinner off her father’s flowers and grass, but pushed it out of the garden.

The wicked woman was told how the gardener’s daughter had treated her cow; so she cried all day long, and pretended to be ill. When her husband asked her what was the matter, she answered, “I am sick because the gardener’s daughter has ill-treated my cow. She beat it, and turned it out of her father’s garden, and said many wicked things. If you will have the girl killed, I shall live; but if you do not kill her, I shall die.” The prince at once ordered his servants to take the gardener’s daughter the next morning to the jungle, and there kill her.

So the next morning early the servants went to the gardener’s house to take away his daughter. He and his wife cried bitterly, and begged the servants to leave the girl with them. They offered them a great many rupees, saying, “Take these rupees, and leave us our daughter.” “How can we leave you your daughter,” said the servants, “when the King’s youngest son has ordered us to take her to the jungle and kill her, that his wife may get well?”

So they led the girl away; and as they went to the jungle, they said to each other, “How beautiful this girl is!” They found her so beautiful that they grew very sorrowful at the thought of killing her.

They took the girl to a great plain, which was about ten miles distant from the King’s country; but when they got there they said they could not kill her. She was so beautiful that they really could not kill her. She said to them, “You were ordered to kill me, so kill me.” “No,” they answered, “we cannot kill you, we cannot kill you.”

Then the girl took the knife in her own hand and cut out her two eyes; and one eye became a parrot, and the other a mainá. Then she cut out her heart and it became a great tank. Her body became a splendid palace and garden–a far grander palace than was the King’s palace; her arms and legs became the pillars that supported the verandah roof; and her head the dome on the top of the palace.

The prince’s servants looked on all the time these changes were taking place, and they were so frightened by them, that when they got home they would not tell the prince or any one else what they had seen. No one lived in this wonderful house. It stood empty in its garden by its tank, and the parrot and mainá lived in the garden trees.

Some time afterwards the youngest prince went out hunting, and towards evening he found himself on the great plain where stood the wonderful palace. He rode up to it and said to himself, “I never saw any house here before. I wonder who lives here?” He went through the great gate into the garden, and then he saw the large tank, and how beautiful the garden was. He went all through the garden and was delighted with it, and he saw that it was beautifully kept, and was in perfect order. Then he went into the palace, and went through all the rooms, and wondered more and more to whom this beautiful house could belong. He was very much surprised, too, at finding no one in the palace, though the rooms were all splendidly furnished, and very clean and neat.

“My father is a great king,” he said to himself, “and yet he has not got a palace like this.” It was now deep night, so the prince knew he could not go home till the next day. “Never mind,” he said, “I will sleep in the verandah. I am not afraid, though I shall be quite alone.”

So he lay down to sleep in the verandah, and while he lay there, the parrot and mainá flew in, and they perched near him, for they knew he was there, and they wanted him to hear what they said to each other. Then they began chattering together; and the parrot told the mainá how the prince’s father was king of the neighbouring country, and how he had seven sons, and how six of the sons had married six princesses, “but this prince, who was the youngest son, would not marry; and what is more, he did not like his brother’s wives at all.” Then the birds stopped talking and did not chatter any more that night. The prince was very much surprised at the birds knowing who he was, and all about his dislike to his brothers’ wives.

The next morning he rode home; and there he stayed all day, and would not talk. His wife asked him, “What is the matter with you? Why are you so silent?” “My head aches,” he answered: “I am ill.” But towards evening he felt he must go back to the empty palace on the great plain, so he said to his wife, “I am going out to eat the air for a little while.” Then he got on his horse and rode off to the palace.

As soon as he had laid himself down in the verandah, the parrot and the mainá perched near him; and the parrot told the mainá how the prince had heard of the Bél-Princess; and all about his long journey in search of her, and how he found the bél-fruit, and how he was turned to stone. Then he stopped chattering, and the birds said nothing more to each other that night.

In the morning the King’s son rode home, and was as silent and grave as he had been before. He told his wife his head ached when she asked him whether he was ill.

That night he again slept in the verandah of the strange palace, and heard a little more of his story from the birds.

The next day he was still silent and grave, and his wife was very uneasy. “I am sure the Bél-Princess is alive,” she said to herself, “and that he goes every night to see her.” Then she asked him, “Why do you go out every evening? Why do you not stay at home?” “I am not well,” he answered, “so I go to my mother’s house” (the prince had a little house of his own in his father’s compound). “I will not sleep at home again till I am well.”

That night he lay down to sleep again in the verandah of the great empty palace, and heard the parrot tell the mainá all that happened to the prince up to the time that he fell asleep in his father’s garden with the beautiful Bél-Princess sitting beside him.

On the fifth night the prince lay down to sleep again in the verandah of the palace on the great plain, and watched eagerly for the little birds to begin their talk. This night the parrot told how the wicked woman had come and taken the Bél-Princess’s clothes, and thrown her down the well; how the princess became a lotus-flower which the wicked wife broke to bits; how the bits of the lotus-flower turned into a bél-fruit which she threw away; how out of the fruit came a tiny girl-baby that the gardener adopted; how the wicked woman persuaded the prince to have this girl killed when she was seven years old; how he and the mainá had once been this girl’s eyes; how the tank was once her heart, and how her body had changed into this palace and garden, while her head became the dome on the top of the palace.

Then the mainá asked the parrot where the Bél-Princess was. “Cannot she be found?” said the mainá. “Yes,” said the parrot, “she can be found; but the King’s youngest son alone can find her, and he is so foolish! He believes that his ugly, wicked wife is the beautiful Bél-Princess!” “And where is the princess?” asked the mainá. “She is here,” said the parrot. “If the prince would come one day and go through all the rooms of this palace till he came to the centre room, he would see a trap-door in the middle of that room. If he lifted the trap-door he would see a staircase which leads to an underground palace, and in this palace is the Bél-princess.” “And can no one but the prince lift the trap-door?” asked the mainá. “No one,” answered the parrot. “It is God’s order that only the King’s youngest son can lift the trap-door and find the Bél-Princess.”

The next day the young prince went through all the rooms of the palace, instead of going home. When he came to the centre room, he looked for the trap-door, and when he had lifted it he saw the staircase. He went down it, and found himself in the under-ground palace, which was far more beautiful than the one above-ground. It was full of servants; and in one room a grand dinner was standing ready. In another room he saw a gold bed, all covered with pearls and diamonds, and on the bed lay the Bél-Princess.

Day and night she prayed to God and read a holy book. She did nothing else.

When the prince went into her room and she saw him, she was very sad, not happy, for she thought, “He is so foolish; he knows nothing of what has happened to me.” Then she said to him, “Why did you come here? Go home again to your father’s palace.”

The prince burst out crying. “See, princess,” he said, “I knew nothing of your palace. I only found it by chance five nights ago. I have slept here in the verandah for the last five nights, and only last night did I learn what had happened to you, and how to find you.” “I know it is true,” she said, “that you knew nothing of what happened to me. But now that you have found me, what will you do?”

“I will go home to my father’s palace,” he answered, “and make everything ready for you, and then I will come and marry you and take you home.”

So it was all settled, and he ate some food, and returned to his father. He told his father and mother all that had happened to the Bél-Princess, and how her body had turned into the beautiful garden and palace that stood on the big plain; and of the little birds; and of the underground palace in which she now lived. So his father said that he and the prince’s mother, and his six brothers and their wives, would all take him in great state to the palace and marry him to the beautiful Bél-Princess; and that then they would all return to their own palace, and all live together. “But first the wicked woman must be killed,” said the King.

So he ordered his servants to take her to the jungle and kill her, and throw her body away. So they took her away at four o’clock in the afternoon and killed her.

One morning two or three days later, the prince and his father and mother, and brothers and sisters-in-law, went to the great palace on the wide plain; and there, in the evening, the king’s youngest son was married to the Bél-Princess. And when his father and mother and brothers, and his brothers’ wives, saw her, they all said, “It is quite true. She is indeed a Bél-Princess!”

After the wedding they all returned to the King’s palace, and there they lived together. But the King and his sons used often to go to the palace on the great plain to eat the air; and they used to lend it sometimes to other rájás and kings.

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