Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religionHartland, Edwin Sidney
Religion
Ritual and belief : $b Studies in the history of religion
Hartland, Edwin Sidney
Ethnopsychology; Magic; Religion; Rites and ceremonies
A tale of the Teleut Tartars tells of a father who was enraged with
his son because he interpreted the cry of some birds, declaring that
they foretold that he himself would become emperor, and his father
would drink his urine. The father, in his anger, struck off his son’s
head. {299} He then killed his horse, skinned it, rolled his son’s
body in the hide and flung it into the sea. The waves carried the
package to a village, where an old woman found it. She opened the
leather, and the youth came out alive. The prince of that land had
died, leaving no son. His subjects took two golden posts, and fastened
on their tops two tapers. They then set up the posts in the middle of
the village. Everyone was required to jump through them, and the
tapers would fall on him who was to be the prince. But they
obstinately remained standing until the destined youth came, when they
both fell on his neck and burst into flame. If he had not become an
emperor, at least he was now a prince: and with that variation, the
whole of the bird’s prophecy was in due course fulfilled.[299.1] But
we need not follow it further. The hero of a Balochi tale likewise
falls under his father’s displeasure. His father was a king, and the
son took advantage of his royalty to break the crockery of his
father’s subjects. When the people complained, his father drove him
away. In the course of his wanderings, he came to a town where the
king had just died. The palace door was shut, and upon it was written:
“He whose hand shall open this door, shall be king of this city.” The
wandering prince, reading this, said: “Bismillah.” He pushed the door:
it opened. He entered, seated himself on the throne, and became
king.[299.2]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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