Chapter X: The Soothsayer's Son

_Source._--Mrs. Kingscote, _Tales of the Sun_ (p. 11 _seq._), from Pandit Natesa Sastri's _Folk-Lore of Southern India_, pt. ii., originally from _Ind. Antiquary_. I have considerably condensed and modified the somewhat Babu English of the original.

_Parallels._--See Benfey, _Pantschatantra_, § 71, i. pp. 193-222, who quotes the _Karma Jataka_ as the ultimate source: it also occurs in the _Saccankira Jataka_ (Fausböll, No. 73), trans. Rev. R. Morris, _Folk-Lore Jour._ iii. 348 _seq._ The story of the ingratitude of man compared with the gratitude of beasts came early to the West, where it occurs in the _Gesta Romanorum_, c. 119. It was possibly from an early form of this collection that Richard Coeur de Lion got the story, and used it to rebuke the ingratitude of the English nobles on his return in 1195. Matthew Paris tells the story, _sub anno_ (it is an addition of his to Ralph Disset), _Hist. Major_, ed. Luard, ii. 413-6, how a lion and a serpent and a Venetian named Vitalis were saved from a pit by a woodman, Vitalis promising him half his fortune, fifty talents. The lion brings his benefactor a leveret, the serpent "gemmam pretiosam," probably "the precious jewel in his head" to which Shakespeare alludes (_As You Like It_, ii. I., _cf._ Benfey, _l. c._, p. 214, _n._), but Vitalis refuses to have anything to do with him, and altogether repudiates the fifty talents. "Hæc referebat Rex Richardus munificus, ingratos redarguendo."

_Remarks._--Apart from the interest of its wide travels, and its appearance in the standard mediæval History of England by Matthew Paris, the modern story shows the remarkable persistence of folk-tales in the popular mind. Here we have collected from the Hindu peasant of to-day a tale which was probably told before Buddha, over two thousand years ago, and certainly included among the Jatakas before the Christian era. The same thing has occurred with _The Tiger, Brahman, and Jackal_ (No. ix. _supra_).