Prince Lal Maluk (Sindhi: "شهزادو لال ملوڪ") is a Pakistani folktale from Sindh and published by Sindhologist Nabi Bakhsh Baloch, about the marriage between a human maiden and a bridegroom of supernatural origin; she betrays his trust, and has to search for him. The tale is a local form of the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom or The Search for the Lost Husband, in that a woman marries a man of supernatural origin (a snake or serpent), loses him and must regain him.
Summary In a certain land, a woodcutter earns his living by selling wood and herding cattle, and is endlessly hounded by his nagging wife about their poor situation. One day, some people from his village are leaving to seek new jobs elsewhere, and the woodcutter's wife forces him to accompany the others. At a point in the journey, the group stops to rest. The next morning, the woodcutter wakes up and notices a snake crawled into his satchel, and he decides to return to the village and use the snake to mercy kill his wife and children. He goes back home and places the snake inside a pot of flour, then leaves not to watch the deed. His wife goes to fetch some flour and finds a shiny necklace inside it, instead of the snake. The woman takes the necklace to a jeweler, and is paid handsomely for it. The woodcutter, meanwhile, is waiting for news of his wife's death, but, instead, he is visited by his children, who are trying to call him for dinner. After the children come and go, he decides to check for himself if his wife is dead, and finds his house furnished with food, clothes and tools. Suspecting some cheating on her part at first, the woodcutter is told of the necklace his wife sold to the jeweler, and goes to talk to him. He lies to the jeweler the necklace was to be a gift for the king, and threatens to tell the king about it. The jeweler pays for his silence and himself goes to give the necklace to the king.
The king gives the necklace to his queen, which she uses and puts it away. Days later, she orders for a servant to fetch the necklace, and the servant tells the queen the necklace is gone, and a baby boy is in its place. The queen goes to check for herself and cradles the baby. The king appears soon after and sees the baby for himself. The royal couple decide to adopt the baby and name him Lal Maluk. Years later, the king sends his ministers to arrange a marriage to a prospective bride on behalf of the prince, but the king dies while the minister is on the road. Lal Maluk assumes the throne and is warned by a fakir that his minister has traitorous intentions and wants to usurp marry Lal Maluk's fiancée. Lal Maluk rushes to his fiancée's side and shows him a letter with his picture, while the traitorous minister tries to arrange a marriage between his own son and the princess who is to be Lal Maluk's wife. Lal Maluk and the princess saddle some horses and flee the kingdom.
The couple make way to another city and Lal Maluk advises his fiancée to put on male attire, while he goes to buys provisions for the road. He enters a shop to buy some food, when the female shopkeeper ties a thread around his neck and turns him into a lamb. Back to the princess, she senses something wrong happened to Lal Maluk and enters the city disguised as man. She soon learns there is an archery contest for the hand of the local princess. Lal Maluk's fiancée wins at the archery contest and marries the princess, introducing himself as "Prince Lal Maluk". Husband and wife live together, but cannot consummate the marriage. The she-prince goes to buy a parrot in the market to keep her company in the palace, as suspicions of her true gender start to mount, due to the minister poisoning the king's ear with rumours. The minister tries to unmask her gender by setting tests (choosing a flower, preferring sweet food to salted one, undressing to take a bath in the river, and patrolling the streets near the shops of women's wares), which she passes with the help of the parrot. Defeated, the minister betrothes his own daughter to "him".
The she-prince buys a lamb which she finds in a store, and undoes the magic on the real Lal Maluk by pulling a thread from the lamb's neck. They trade places, and Lal Maluk goes to marry the local princess and the local minister's daughter as his co-wives, who, after being told of the whole event, decide to keep a secret between them. Life goes on, until one day, while Lal Maluk is away, an old woman appears at the palace - Lal Maluk's snake mother in human disguise - and convinces them to ask Lal Maluk's caste. After the woman leaves, the princess asks Lal Maluk his caste. He deflects the question in an anger. The next day, she repeats the question, and Lal Maluk takes both girls to the riverbank, and questions the girls' insistence to know his caste. He dips his feet in the water and warns them that what they will see is him: he turns into a snake and swims away. The palace tries to cover the fact by saying that Lal Maluk is on a hunt, and try to capture his snake shape, while the princesses mourn for the loss of their husband.
Later, Lal Maluk's first wife learns that on a certain night, in a certain day, some music begins to sound underneath a tree, and decides to see it for herself. She goes to the tree and finds a little snake. The reptile turns into Lal Maluk, and explains his spiritual guide is preventing him from escaping, but she can save him: she is to come to the place on the fourteenth day of the month, when his spiritual guide comes with his retinue, clean up the path and serve sweet milk, and beat the drum ("tabla", in the original) in front of his spiritual guide; in gratitude, his spiritual guide will be pleased and ask her for a reward, to which she is to ask for Lal Maluk. The princess does as Lal Maluk has asked: she waits for the 14th day, prepares the place for the coming of the retinue, and joins the others musicians in the presentation they make for the "spiritual guide" (who is described as a jinn in the text). The princess goes to fill in for the previous drummer and does a number in front of the spirit, who is delighted and pleased by the music and allows the princess to ask for a reward. She asks for the hand of Lal Maluk, which is agreed upon: the prince resumes his human form and departs with his human wife.
Reunited with his three co-wives, Lal Maluk misses his mother and plans to return with his fathers-in-law's armies to his home kingdom. He sets up a tent on the outskirts of town and inquires the citizens about the minister's rule; they answer they want their rightful king. Lal Maluk threaten to make war with the minister lest he surrenders the throne. The minister renounces and flees the city with his son, while Lal Maluk regains his kingdom and reunites with his mother.
Analysis Tale type The tale belongs to the international cycle of "The Search for the Lost Husband", according to the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, catalogued under the umbrella tale type ATU 425. In Stith Thompson and Warren Roberts's Types of Indic Oral Tales, the tale is classified under its own Indic type, 425D Ind, "Search for Serpent Husband": the heroine marries a man of mysterious origin; jealous women probe her into asking his name or origins; he reveals it and turns into a snake; after many hardships, she reunites with him.Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett. Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1960. p. 63.Blackburn, Stuart H. “Domesticating the Cosmos: History and Structure in a Folktale from India”. In: The Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 3 (1986): 540 and footnote nr. 20. https://doi.org/10.2307/2056529.Blackburn, Stuart. "Coming Out of His Shell: Animal-Husband Tales in India". In: Syllables of Sky: Studies in South Indian Civilization. Oxford University Press, 1995. p. 45. .
Motifs The protagonist's name, Lal, means "ruby".Steel, F. Annie Webster; Temple, R. Carnac. Wide-awake stories: a collection of tales told by little children, between sunset and sunrise, in the Panjab and Kashmir. Bombay: Education Society's Press, 1884. p. 347."Сказки народов Памира" [Fairy tales from the Peoples of Pamir]. Перевод с памирских языков. Сост. и коммент. А. Л. Грюнберга и И. М. Стеблин-Каменского. Предисловие А. Н. Болдырева. М., Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1976. pp. 512-513 (Notes to Tale nr. 1).
The husband's transformations According to Stith Thompson and study of motifs of Indian literature and oral folklore, the tale contains the motifs D425.1.3. "Transformation: snake to garland",Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 104. B604.1, "Marriage to snake"Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 80. and D391 "Transformation: serpent (snake) to person".Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 103.
The sequence where prince Lal Maluk turns into a ram by the use of the thread and his later release appears in an Indic tale type incorporated in Thompson's 1961 revision of the international Aarne-Thompson Index. In this type, AaTh 977, "The Eloping Couple and the Robbers", after a series of adventures between the prince and his princess, he is turned into an animal by a witch.Aarne, Antti; Thompson, Stith. The types of the folktale: a classification and bibliography. Folklore Fellows Communications FFC no. 184. Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1961. p. 344. However, German folklorist Hans-Jörg Uther, in his 2004 revision of the international index, discontinued the typing.
The husband's vanishing In his work about Cupid and Psyche and other Animal as Bridegroom tales, Swedish scholar identified that, in certain tales, the heroine causes her supernatural husband's disappearance by inquiring his name. Swahn named this motif The Name Taboo and surmised that it occurred "primarily in India".Swahn, Jan Öjvind. The Tale of Cupid and Psyche. Lund, C.W.K. Gleerup. 1955. pp. 238, 251. In Thompson and Roberts's Types of Indic Oral Tales, this motif appears in Indic type 425D Ind, "Search for Serpent Husband": the heroine insists to know her husband's caste or name, and he, in return, gives her an answer, but vanishes in the water like a snake.Thompson, Stith; Roberts, Warren Everett. Types of Indic Oral Tales: India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1960. p. 63. This episode corresponds with motifs C32.2., "Tabu: questioning supernatural husband"; C32.2.1, "Tabu: asking name of supernatural husband"; C32.2.2, "Tabu: asking where supernatural husband comes from", and C32.2.3, "Tabu: asking for caste of supernatural husband."Thompson, S., Balys, J. (1958). The oral tales of India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 85.
Variants
Prince Lal and Princess Hira (Sindhi) In a Sindhi tale published by Sindhologist Nabi Bakhsh Baloch with the title "Prince Lal and Princess Hira" (Sindhi: "لعل بادشاھ ۽ هيرا راڻي"), a poor woodcutter is walking home, when he is attacked by a snake. He throws a bundle of wood at it to kill it, and his wife finds a ruby necklace under the wood, which they sell to the king the next morning. The king, Gharib Kathir, gives the necklace to his wife to wear, which she keeps in a golden purse. One day, the king asks his wife to see the necklace, and the queen goes to retrieve it, but finds a human baby in its place. They decide to adopt the baby whom they name 'Lal' (ruby) Shahzad and raise him.