The younger sister went to the rice-field.
Go to our field and see how our paddy is doing, whether it is unripe or ripe," she said, and he went.
He went — he took a stick and went.
He took the stick and, thinking the ears of grain were infested with lice [mistaking the grains for nits], he beat them and swept away the grain.
He threw it away. Afterwards he came back, and [his sister] said, "Is the paddy ripe, child?
"No, it isn't ripe, it's got nits," he said, [making sure the researcher understands:] "nits."
They occur, you know, here [indicating hair].
"There were nits. I threw it out and came home," he said.
She went there where he had thrown down the rice.
"This won't do," she thought and went to bathe.
"You go the river and catch some fish!" she said to her brother.
Her brother went [corrects feminine form] to the river to kill fish.
She went up to bathe, way up somewhere.
He found a hair like this.
The sister's hair got onto her brother's hook.
[for researcher:] You know, they fish [with] that.
[M] Yes.
mm. When it had got onto his hook, he said, "Whoever's head this long [hair] is on, I will marry her."
After saying that he went all through the village, but he didn't find her.
It's his sister's hair, where would he find it?
He went and measured his sister's [hair] exactly like this; it was his sister's hair.
"Now I'll marry you," said the brother.
[M] Eh — the elder brother
Yes, the elder brother.
The sister was saying "No, brother, no, brother — no, brother!"
"I will, I'll marry you," he said
He married her.
After she was married, what happened to her hair, to the hair of Queen Goldenhair, was,
it became more and more like gold, more and more.
As it became more and more golden, the king began to look at her.
"It would be good if I brought that one [as a wife].
Now it won't do [i.e. nothing else will do], I recognize her as my wife," he said, and he brought Sunkesa Rani away [from her husband].
He brought her.
When he had brought her — it was the idiot’s younger sister, she was made queen.
"Now the king has taken his [the idiot’s] wife, she’s Sunkesa Rani. Let him take her, it's OK," they said — all the villagers, the old men and the people.
They said it was all right, and afterwards [the idiot thought], “what can I do — their marriage is done, the king and queen's”.
Again the king made more marriages.
How many wives did the king marry? — six, after Sunkesa.
He brought seven wives, but all remained childless, not one's child was born.
Afterwards the eldest one, Queen Sunkesa, he made her the horse-manure cleaner down in the shed.
She was full of lice and nits down there sweeping up horse manure.
The seven wives were all decked out, they were all dressed up.
[Sunkesa said] "O Lord! How did this manure-sweeping befall me! I used to eat so well, to dress so well, today I'm sweeping manure!"
The king came, and when she ate the pit of a mango that he had eaten, right then she had a child, a child was born.
When the child was born, they called an assembly to find out what had happened, whose baby it was.
They assembled the men. When they assembled the men, "Whoever this child — whoever's body he clings to, we must say that the child is his."
The child walked right around.
When he walked around, the king was there; he [the child] went and stood right there
"Ah, it's his," they said.
After that, [the king said:] "Siva Siva Sunkesa Rani!" — "Today I was sweeping horse manure in the stable, today I became queen!" she said — she sang up above [in the palace?].
Down below were the eldest— no! — the second and third co-wives. The co-wives said:
"O the whore, she just goes ahead and does whatever she pleases — now she's the king's queen, she's Sunkesa Rani. She married her brother, now she's Sunkesa Rani."
The other seven wives said this. [The narrator begins another version of the birth:] Then what happened, the king had gone hunting and the baby was born.
When it was born — you know, the basket for milled rice, about this big — they put her face into a basket like that.
Whose face? The child's?
No!
Sunkesa?
Yes, Sunkesa Rani's.
The baby was being born behind. They brought rocks there and put them into the blood.
They rolled the stones around. "See what's happened, these stones were born!" they said.
They took the babies and threw them away.
"You gave birth to stones," they said.
She began to weep.
She wept and went across to the forest.
She went to the forest to cut fodder.
She cut fodder and came back, and in the evening she was sitting there when the king came. "O Sunkesa Rani, why are you sitting there?" he asked.
"What can I do, I have no child, what can I do?" she said.
"Where did the baby go?"
"There is no baby."
They had buried the babies further away.
Afterwards they drank milk, the babies.
They drank milk. Cows went and gave them milk.
If a buffalo went, it gave milk; if a tiger went it gave milk; if a jackal went it gave milk. They grew strong, they grew day by day, the babies.
[M] All alone in the jungle?
Two brothers— a brother and sister.
They were twins, the co-wives hid them and put in stones.
"These are your son and daughter," they said.
Day by day they grew, afterwards.
The king had gone hunting.
The children said, "We have no mother, we have nothing."
[The king thought:] "Who is there today, who is speaking in the forest today, who is there?
I don't know what it is," he said.
The king kept on hunting and reached that place.
When he reached the place where the children were, there were the king's children, the son and daughter.
Now what was his name — wait! — was it "Dhruva" or what? — I've forgotten what they called him, I've forgotten the king's name, what he was called.
Then he said, "Oh, if these are my son and daughter, they will come to me."
He was there, and they went straight and sat in his lap.
They sat in his lap — [the narrator skips to the boy looking for his sister, who has gotten married as a second wife:] The co-wife, the whore, was there in the house — the sister had gone with a husband.
She had gone to a husband; afterwards, her brother went to his sister's house.
There was his sister and also another, a co-wife. She [the co-wife] poisoned the brother. She put in poison in his food.
[Backtracking to the arrival of the brother at the house:] The sister was in isolation for her period. The brother sang, "Wherever my sister may be, let me go to that house; wherever my sister wanders, let me go to that country."
"Come, child, come here!" said the co-wife, and she gave him food and killed him.
His sister didn't know. The sister came later and met the co-wife. "Where could my brother be?" she wept. "Where could my brother be?
He must have gone to someone's house," she said. The sister perked up her ears [to listen for him].
She was at her co-wife's place; her brother was dead. She came after he was dead.
She did divination with grains of rice, and her brother came to life.
[Meaning unclear] She took the co-wife and dumped her in the jungle, right where she had buried her brother, and came back. [Unclear: the co-wife seems to speak in the next sentence.]
[Meaning unclear] After dumping him [?], when she [?] came back she [?] said, "No, I was doing something, where have you been all this time? [response?:] I came before, I would have finished you off, whore!"
"Your brother is still here, you're the whore! Your brother is alive!" said the co-wife.
The brother went on singing: "O my sister, she put poison in my food, my enemy did."
He went on singing. Afterwards a hawk came by; he held onto the hawk's legs and went up to the sky.
He went from there to the sky, that boy, our boy from back then.