Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

he determined to seek the counsel of his aunt, who was an
ogress. The old woman consented to help him, and bade him not to be
anxious, as she felt certain that she would succeed in getting the
beautiful woman for his son's wife.
    She assumed the shape of a bee and went along buzzing, and buzzing, and
buzzing. Her keen sense of smell soon brought her to the beautiful
princess, to whom she appeared as an old hag, holding in one hand a
stick by way of support. She introduced herself to the beautiful
princess and said, "I am your aunt, whom you have never seen before,
because I left the country just after your birth." She also embraced
and kissed the princess by way of adding force to her words. The
beautiful princess was thoroughly deceived. She returned the ogress's
embrace, and invited her to come and stay in the house as long as she
could, and treated her with such honour and attention, that the ogress
thought to herself, "I shall soon accomplish my errand." When she had
been in the house three days, she began to talk of the charmed ring,
and advised her to keep it instead of her husband, because the latter
was constantly out shooting and on other such-like expeditions, and
might lose it. Accordingly the beautiful princess asked her husband for
the ring, and he readily gave it to her.
    The ogress waited another day before she asked to see the precious
thing. Doubting nothing, the beautiful princess complied, when the
ogress seized the ring, and reassuming the form of a bee flew away with
it to the palace, where the prince was lying nearly on the point of
death. "Rise up. Be glad. Mourn no more," she said to him. "The woman
for whom you yearn will appear at your summons. See, here is the charm,
whereby you may bring her before you." The prince was almost mad with
joy when he heard these words, and was so desirous of seeing the
beautiful princess, that he immediately spoke to the ring, and the
house with its fair occupant descended in the midst of the palace
garden. He at once entered the building, and telling the beautiful
princess of his intense love, entreated her to be his wife. Seeing no
escape from the difficulty, she consented on the condition that he
would wait one month for her.
    Meanwhile the merchant's son had returned from hunting and was terribly
distressed not to find his house and wife. There was the place only,
just as he knew it before he had tried the charmed ring which Raja
Indrasha had given him. He sat down and determined to put an end to
himself. Presently the cat and dog came up. They had gone away and
hidden themselves, when they saw the house and everything disappear. "O
master!" they said, "stay your hand. Your trial is great, but it can be
remedied. Give us one month, and we will go and try to recover your
wife and house."
    "Go," said he, "and may the great God aid your efforts. Bring back my
wife, and I shall live."
    So the cat and dog started off at a run, and did not stop till they
reached the place whither their mistress and the house had been taken.
"We may have some difficulty here," said the cat. "Look, the king has
taken our master's wife and house for himself. You stay here. I will go
to the house and try to see her." So the dog sat down, and the cat
climbed up to the window of the room, wherein the beautiful princess
was sitting, and entered. The princess recognised the cat, and informed
it of all that had happened to her since she had left them.
    "But is there no way of escape from the hands of these people?" she
asked.
    "Yes," replied the cat, "if you can tell me where the charmed ring is."
    "The ring is in the stomach of the ogress," she said.
    "All right," said the cat, "I will recover it. If we once get it,
everything is ours." Then the cat descended the wall of the house, and
went and laid down by a rat's hole and pretended she was dead. Now at
that time a great wedding chanced to be going on among the rat
community of that place, and all the rats of the neighbourhood were
assembled in