# Bengal Fairy Tales/Padmalochan, the Weaver

II
PADMALOCHAN, THE WEAVER
THERE is a legend in Bengal, that weavers, as a class, are very stupid people, there being this peculiar element in their composition, that while very expert in matters of weaving and selling the products of their labour, they betray an extraordinary lack of common sense in every other respect.
Padmalochan was a weaver, and from what we have said, it is needless to add that he was a first-class dolt. One day, being at leisure, he was seated on his haunches at his door and regaling himself with the fumes of his hooka, when he beheld the well-known palmist of his village passing by. After the usual form of salutation, the weaver asked the palmist to tell him his fortune, especially calculating the time of his death. As, however, the reader of fortune made his living by his trade, and knew his customer to be too stingy to pay even a pice for his labour, he in ill-humour took up the weaver's right palm, and dropped it again in a second, saying that he would die the very moment a line of thread should pass out from behind his body. The parties then separated, the palmist to practise his art among those more liberal, and the weaver to work at his loom.
PADMALOCHAN THE WEAVER
​concerning his death, he rolled on the ground, lamenting in the bitterest terms his untimely departure from the world, and the subsequent wretchedness of his dear wife, whom he must leave a helpless widow. His lamentations grew so loud that they drew his better half to the scene. She, who had been apprised of the palmist's calculation, was beyond herself with grief, and fell by her husband's side, railing against the gods for this unjust and cruel visitation that they were inflicting upon them. Her shrieks quickly brought the neighbours to her side. They also were weavers, and not a whit more sensible than the afflicted couple, and when they saw Padmalochan in that unhappy state, they could not forbear shedding tears of sympathy. The man himself was naturally of an imaginative turn of mind, and in fancy he went through all the agonies of death, omitting not even the last gasp. Then when he seemed motionless, his wife and friends supposed that the soul had taken flight, and they at once engaged themselves in making preparations for the obsequies. Bundles of wood with a very sparse quantity of ghee to be rubbed on the supposed corpse before placing it on the funeral pile, and incense to be thrown into the fire to make a sweet odour, were prepared, and the sympathetic neighbours set out for the place of cremation in a deserted locality, many miles distant from their village. They carried on their shoulders their friend's body, wrapped in a mat and tied to a bamboo, and leaving the city behind them they reached the middle of a field, when it was near midnight. There were several footpaths marked in the field, and the benighted men did not know which to take. They were at their wits' ends, and commenced arguing on the point. The disagreement took the form of a quarrel, until at last Padma, so long silent in fancied death, could no longer hold his tongue. He cried out, "Friends, I know well the way to the burning ghat; and I would gladly tell you in which direction to go, if my tongue were not tied by Yama."
Hearing him speak, his friends were greatly frightened, ​for they thought it was a Dano, an evil spirit that, taking possession of a corpse, speaks and acts like the man whose dead body it has entered. Hastily throwing the body down, they ran away as fast as they could, and did not look behind until they reached the inhabited quarters of the city.
In the meantime, Padma disengaged himself from his bonds, and in spite of his bruised body managed to climb up a peepul tree near by, in order to secure himself from jackals, and other dangerous wild beasts. He imagined that he really was a Dano, but still he could not but obey his human instincts. After some time sleep was about to seal his eye-lids and he had begun to doze when, as chance would have it, there came to the foot of the tree a band of house-breakers, abroad on a plundering excursion. One of Padma's legs was hanging down, and it touched the head of one of the thieves, who instantly gave it so strong a pull that it brought him down to the ground. The house-breakers, superstitious like other illiterate men, thought it must be some superhuman being who had waylaid them, and in great dread they asked him who he was. It was necessary to give them some answer, and Padma thought it best to give it in a nasal tone, for he knew that no evil spirit can talk except through his nose. In a nasal tone, therefore, he told them his whole history, particularly, of course, of his having died, and of the Dano's advent into his body. The men to whom he talked were not such block-heads as to believe him, and they realized that he was a fellow stupid enough to be made their cat's-paw in any daring enterprise. So they invited him to follow them, telling him at the same time, who and what they were. He gladly accepted the invitation and accompanied them.
The field was soon crossed, and a town showing all the signs of opulence was reached. On the side of a river near it, there was a professional drummer's cottage, through the walls of which the house-breakers made a hole big enough for a man to pass. It is according to the code in force among ​house-breakers that one of the perpetrators of the crime should make the first entrance, and if the coast is clear, inform his fellows of it, either by some signs from inside, or by coming out, at the same time carrying away anything within his reach. Acting according to their code, but unwilling to risk themselves, the house-breakers in question induced Padma to make the first entrance, telling him at the same time to bring away with him the most valuable things he could lay hands on, the most valuable thing probably being the heaviest thing within reach. He entered the room into which the hole led, and finding nobody there, commenced seeking something heavy, with which he might return to his companions. He found a curry-stone, one of the heaviest things in a Bengali's house, and so he took this and went out with it as if it were precious booty. The thieves laughed at his stupidity, and sent him a second time through the hole, telling him that the most valuable things in a cottage like the one before them were not only heavy, but sonorous also, meaning thereby brass or bell-metal utensils. He waited for no further instructions, and hopeful of success went back into the room, where in a corner he found something large and heavy, and to see if it gave any sound, he commenced beating it with his palm. It was a drum and it gave forth its Chatak, chatak, taktaksin sound so loud through the whole house, that the inmates were awakened. Startled, they lit their lamps, and entered the room where they beheld the novice in theft playing on the drum in great glee. Asked who he was, and why he was there in that position, he made a clean breast of everything. Some strong male members of the family opened the outer door, in order to apprehend the robbers, but none of them were to be found, for they had all decamped at the first sign of danger. The poor weaver looked blank, and the men were disposed to let him off. They offered to take him home, but he did not consent, for fear that, as he was a Dano, his presence would bring pollution to his house, and ​misfortune on her who remained there, the dear wife to whom he was still devoted. He therefore volunteered to go about with them as a drummer, so that by entertaining the gods and goddesses with his performances, he might be rewarded with a life more blessed and happier than that of a Dano. The men acceded to his request, but what happened to him in the future Bhabaghuray has not yet told us, and until he does we must remain in ignorance.