Atondido Stories
The Gold-Giving Serpent
Now in a certain place there lived a Brahman named Haridatta.
He was a farmer, but poor was the return his labour brought
him. One day, at the end of the hot hours, the Brahman, over-
come by the heat, lay down under the shadow of a tree to have a
doze. Suddenly he saw a great hooded snake creeping out of an
ant-hill near at hand. So he thought to himself, "Sure this is the
guardian deity of the field, and I have not ever worshipped it.
That's why my farming is in vain. I will at once go and pay my
respects to it."
When he had made up his mind, he got some milk, poured it
into a bowl, and went to the ant-hill, and said aloud: "O Guardi-
an of this Field! all this while I did not know that you dwelt here.
That is why I have not yet paid my respects to you; pray forgive
me." And he laid the milk down and went to his house. Next
morning he came and looked, and he saw a gold denar in the
bowl, and from that time onward every day the same thing oc-
curred he gave milk to the serpent and found a gold denar.
One day the Brahman had to go to the village, and so he or-
dered his son to take the milk to the ant-hill. The son brought the
milk, put it down, and went back home. Next day he went again
and found a denar, so he thought to himself: "This ant-hill is
surely full of golden denars; I'll kill the serpent, and take them
all for myself." So next day, while he was giving the milk to the
serpent, the Brahman's son struck it on the head with a cudgel.
But the serpent escaped death by the will of fate, and in a rage
bit the Brahman's son with its sharp fangs, and he fell down
dead at once. His people raised him a funeral pyre not far from
the field and burnt him to ashes.
Two days afterwards his father came back, and when he
learnt his son's fate he grieved and mourned. But after a time,
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