Chapter VI: The Magic Fiddle

_Source._--A. Campbell, _Santal Folk-Tales_, 1892, pp. 52-6, with some verbal alterations. A Bonga is the presiding spirit of a certain kind of rice land; Doms and Hadis are low-caste aborigines, whose touch is considered polluting. The Santals are a forest tribe, who live in the Santal Parganas, 140 miles N.W. of Calcutta (Sir W. W. Hunter, _The Indian Empire_, 57-60).

_Parallels._--Another version occurs in Campbell, p. 106 _seq._, which shows that the story is popular among the Santals. It is obvious, however, that neither version contains the real finish of the story, which must have contained the denunciation of the magic fiddle of the murderous sisters. This would bring it under the formula of _The Singing Bone_, which M. Monseur has recently been studying with a remarkable collection of European variants in the Bulletin of the Wallon Folk-Lore Society of Liège (_cf. Eng. Fairy Tales_, No. ix.). There is a singing bone in Steel-Temple's _Wideawake Stories_, pp. 127 _seq._ ("Little Anklebone").

_Remarks._--Here we have another theme of the common store of European folk-tales found in India. Unfortunately, the form in which it occurs is mutilated, and we cannot draw any definite conclusion from it.