How Raja Rasalu Swung the Seventy Fair Maidens

Intro

On the road to King Sarkap of Kot Bithaur, Raja Rasalu of Sialkot meets kindness with kindness — and discovers that a small rescue can repay a hero’s life. This is a Punjabi epic episode, not a preschool animal fable. Age 9–12+ — not Ages 35.

Story

### The cricket in the fire

Rasalu rode toward Kot Bithaur on his horse Bhaunr Iraqi. In a dry forest a fire leapt through the grass. A tiny voice cried from the flames: Traveller, save me!

Any lesser prince might have ridden on. Rasalu bent from the saddle, plucked a cricket from the burning grass, and set it on cool earth. The cricket pulled free one long feeler and pressed it into the prince’s hand. Keep this. If trouble comes, lay it in fire — and I will come.

Rasalu smiled, half in courtesy, half in disbelief, pocketed the feeler, and rode on.

### Seventy maidens at the gate

At Kot Bithaur’s gates seventy fair maidens, daughters of King Sarkap, came laughing to meet him with trays of sweets and flowers. They were the king’s prettiest trap: many travellers never reached the dice-board.

The youngest saw the prince’s doom and sang a warning: turn back, or lose your head today. Rasalu answered in verse that he would conquer in love and war, and ride out with her as bride. She loved him at once. The other sixty-nine, jealous, set two impossible tasks before he could pass.

### Millet and sand

They mixed a hundredweight of millet with a hundredweight of sand and ordered him to separate every seed by morning.

Rasalu sat by the heap and remembered the cricket. He laid the feeler in the embers. A whirring rose like a small storm — a flight of crickets, their leader the one he had saved. Separate millet from sand, said the prince. Is that all? the cricket answered dryly. Had I known the job was so small, I would not have called so many brethren.

By dawn two clean heaps stood on the courtyard floor.

### The seventy swings

Defeated at the millet, the sixty-nine sisters hung peeng swings from a peepal tree and sat one to a seat. Rasalu must push each until she admitted she was tired — and they meant never to admit it.

He took his place under the tree and pushed. Swing after swing rose like a wheel of colour against the morning sky. He did not stop. By noon the eldest fell silent; by afternoon the middle sisters grew dizzy; by sunset the last of the sixty-nine called for mercy. The youngest watched from the threshold and smiled.

Rasalu had used neither sword nor cruelty — only patience and strength kept for moments when violence will not do.