Once upon a time, there was a man who lived with his daughter. The girl’s mother was dead, so she used to cook for both of them. The father was a farmer at a chena. They had a golden swing at home. Every day, when the lunch was laid on the table the girl used to rock on the golden swing.
A woman asks for fire
One day, a woman came to her and asked for some fire. The girl was tired, and she showed the hearth to the woman to take the fire. While taking some charcoal with fire, the woman saw the cooked food. She pulled some and ate. Then, she took the fire and left.
This happened for a few days. One day, the man asked from the girl,
“Duwa, do you serve food to anyone before me?”
“No, thaththa, but a woman came asking for fire while I was rocking on the golden swing. I was tired. So, I asked the woman to take it from the hearth. It could be her,” the girl said.
The father hides
The father was thoughtful for a while. “Duwa, please cook today and serve it to the table. Then start rocking on the golden swing. Let’s see,” he said. Then he hid inside a cupboard in the house. The daughter did as the father told her to.
The woman came as usual and asked for fire. The girl sent her to the kitchen. Assuming that there was no-one in the house, the woman served a plate of rice, ate and went to the hearth and took some fire into a coconut shell.
The man came out from the cupboard. The woman was frightened but kept calm. The man was furious and asked “What do you think that you are doing in my kitchen? And why would you eat my food?”.
“I thought of sharing your food. I feel a great love for your daughter. I was waiting for this day to meet this beautiful girl’s father. I would like to share my life with you. Please make me your wife” the woman begged. The father thought it is wiser to have a mother at home to look after the daughter who was getting prettier day by day. So, he said “Yes”.
A few weeks passed by. The three of them believed that they were going to have a great family time.
Some weeks later, when the woman was sure that she had won the trust of the man, she said, “I am craving to eat your daughter’s two eyes”. The man was not greatly surprised.
Without thinking twice, the man asked the girl to join him with the dog who was playing with her. He took her to the thick jungle. Put her asleep and tied her to a tall tree. Then took her eyes and came home. The dog ran before him.
The son comes home
When the man was returning home, he saw a little boy was playing with the dog.
He realised that his younger son, whom he sold after his wife’s death had come home. So, he hid the daughter’s eyes in the salt jar.
While the man was describing all these to his new wife, a squirrel dropped a mango near the boy. He wanted to have some salt to eat the mango.
Two eyes in a salt jar
He went to the kitchen and found the two eyes in the jar. He realised the reason for the elder sister not been there in the house. The dog saw this. It was whining and wagging the tail asking the boy to follow him. The boy did so, keeping the eyes in his pocket.
A wish
When he saw his sister in the jungle, he unfastened the rope first, gave her a bath and kept the two eyes on the river bank and made a wish. “If these two eyes are my elder sister’s, may these eyes miraculously go where they belong to!”
A golden kekiri fruit
The elder sister started seeing the world better than before. Suddenly, they heard a siren. They hid behind a bush and watched. The prince of the country came in a chariot drawn by an elephant and he was playing with a golden kekiri fruit. The boy wanted to play with the Kekiri fruit.
The girl said, “My younger brother wants to play with the golden kekiri fruit.”
“Look here young man! If you give me your beautiful sister, I will give you this golden kekiri fruit as a gift” the prince said. Both the girl and the boy agreed.
The prince took them both and the dog into the chariot pulled by the elephant. He took them to the palace. A few days later the stepmother and the father heard that the daughter got married with the prince.
The prince and the princess got married and lived in the palace happily ever after.The younger brother, who later became a prince and the dog also lived at the palace.
Poornima Weerasinghe
MCPHM, BSc, NETL – India
Reading for PhD in Education.
Educationalist and Storyteller