The Boy with the Moon on His Forehead

A king had six queens, and none of them had a child. He consulted doctors, holy sages and wandering beggars, and tried countless medicines, but nothing worked, and he was heartbroken. His ministers advised him to take a seventh wife, so he began to look for one.

In the royal city lived a poor old woman who gathered cow-dung from the fields, shaped it into cakes, dried them in the sun and sold them in the market as fuel. That was all she had to live on. But she had a daughter of extraordinary beauty, so lovely that everyone admired her, and because of it three girls far above her in rank had become her friends: the daughter of the king’s minister, the daughter of a rich merchant, and the daughter of the royal priest.

One day the four girls were bathing in a pond near the palace, and as they washed, each of them boasted of her own special gift.

“Listen, sister,” the minister’s daughter said to the merchant’s daughter. “Whoever marries me will be lucky, because he will never need to buy me clothes. Any cloth I wear never gets dirty, never wears out and never tears.”

“My husband will be lucky too,” said the merchant’s daughter, “because the fuel I cook with never burns away to ash. The same fuel lasts me day after day, year after year.”

“And my husband will be lucky,” said the priest’s daughter, “because the rice I cook never runs out. When everyone has eaten, the pot is still as full as when I started.”

Then the poor woman’s daughter spoke. “The man who marries me will be lucky as well, for I will give birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The girl will be as fair as a goddess, and the boy will have the moon on his forehead and stars on the palms of his hands.”

The king overheard all this, because in his search for a seventh queen he had taken to lurking near places where women gathered. “I don’t care a straw for clothes that never wear out,” he thought, “nor for fuel that never burns up, nor for rice that never runs out. But the fourth girl is delightful. Twins, a goddess-like daughter and a son with the moon on his forehead and stars in his palms! She is the one I will marry.”

He found out that same day that she was the daughter of the poor dung-gatherer, and although the gap in rank was enormous, he was set on marrying her. He sent for the old woman at once. When she saw the king’s messenger at her door she was terrified, thinking she was to be punished for once picking up dung from the king’s own cattle without knowing it. She was taken to the king’s private room, where he asked her whether she had a very beautiful daughter who was friends with the daughters of his minister and his priest. When she said yes, he said, “I will marry your daughter and make her my queen.” She could hardly believe her ears, but he solemnly assured her that his mind was made up.

The news soon spread through the capital. The six queens refused to believe it until the king told them himself, and then they thought he had gone mad. “What folly!” they said. “To marry a girl who isn’t fit to be our maid, and expect us to treat her as an equal, a girl whose mother goes round the fields picking up cow-dung! You must be out of your mind, my lord.” But the king would not be moved. The royal astrologer chose a lucky day, the royal priest performed the wedding, and the dung-gatherer’s daughter became the seventh and best-loved queen.

Some time after the wedding, the king had to go to another part of his lands for six months. Before leaving, he called the seventh queen to him. “I will be away for six months, and before they are over you will have your baby. I want to be with you then, because your enemies may try to do you harm. Hang this golden bell in your room. When your labour pains begin, ring it, and wherever I am I will be with you in a moment. But remember, ring it only when the pains begin.” Then he set off.

The six queens had been listening. The next day they visited the seventh queen. “What a pretty golden bell, sister! Where did you get it, and why is it hanging there?” Innocently she told them that the king had given it to her and that if she rang it he would come to her at once, wherever he was. “Nonsense!” they said. “You must have misunderstood. Who could hear a bell hundreds of miles away? And even if he heard it, how could he travel so far in the blink of an eye? It’s a joke. Ring it and see for yourself.” At first she refused, remembering the king’s words, but in the end they talked her into it.

The king was halfway to his other capital when he heard the bell. He turned round at once and in no time stood in her room. Seeing her walking about quite well, he asked why she had rung the bell before her time. She did not mention the six queens, but said she had only wanted to see whether what he had told her was true. The king was annoyed. He told her firmly not to ring it until her pains began, and left.

Some weeks later the six queens begged her to test the bell a second time. “The first time, the king was not far off, so of course he heard it and came quickly. Now he has been settled in his other capital for ages. Let’s see whether he hears it now.” She held out for a long while, but at last they wore her down and she rang the bell. The king was in court judging cases when he heard it, though nobody else could. He closed the court and in no time stood in her room. Finding that the baby was not on its way, he asked why she had rung it a second time, and she said only that she had been testing it. This time the king was very angry. “Listen,” he said. “You have called me twice for nothing. So know this: when your pains truly come, however hard you ring, I will not come. You will be left to your fate.” And he left.

At last the day came. When the first pains began, the seventh queen rang the golden bell. She waited, but the king did not appear. She rang with all her strength, and still he did not come. He heard it clearly, but he stayed away because he was displeased with her.

When the six queens saw that the king was not coming, they told the seventh queen that palace ladies never gave birth in the royal rooms, and that she must go to a hut near the stables. Then they sent for the palace midwife and paid her a large bribe to get rid of the baby the moment it was born. The seventh queen gave birth to a son with the moon on his forehead and stars on the palms of his hands, and to an exceptionally beautiful daughter. But the midwife had brought along two newborn puppies. She put them in front of the mother and said, “These are what you have given birth to,” and she carried the twins away in a clay pot. The queen had fainted and never saw her babies taken.

Though the king was angry with the seventh queen, he remembered that she was to bear the heir to his throne, and the next morning he changed his mind and came to see her. The puppies were shown to him as her children. His fury and disappointment were boundless. He ordered her thrown out of the palace, dressed in leather, and made to chase crows and stray dogs away in the market. Though she could barely walk, she was driven out, stripped of her fine clothes, dressed in leather and set to scare the crows in the market-place.

Meanwhile the midwife was thinking how to destroy the twins without leaving a trace. A pond might give them away the next day, and a jackal might dig them up if she buried them. Burning them seemed the surest way, but she could not light a fire alone at that hour of the night. Then she had an idea. A potter lived at the edge of the city who shaped clay pots on his wheel by day and fired them late at night. She slipped the clay pot with the babies in among his unbaked pots, which he had set out in rows before going to bed, meaning to get up later and light the fire under them. Then she went away.

That night, as it happened, the potter and his wife slept far too long. Near dawn the wife woke with a start and shook her husband. “We’ve overslept! It’s nearly morning, and I’m afraid it’s too late to fire the pots.” She unbolted the door and ran out to the rows of pots, and could not believe her eyes. Every pot was already baked a fine bright red, though nobody had lit a fire. Amazed, she ran back and cried, “Come and look!” The potter came, stared and wondered. His pots had never been baked so well. Surely only a god or goddess could have done this. As he handled the pots he happened to tip one over, and inside, curled up together, were two newborn babies of more than earthly beauty.

“My dear,” said the potter to his wife, “you must pretend these lovely children are yours.” Everything was arranged, and in due course it was announced that she had given birth to twins. Neighbours crowded in that day to see the beautiful babies and congratulate her on her unexpected good fortune, and she was bursting with pride. “I hardly hoped to have children at all,” she told them, “but now the gods have sent me these twins. May they have all your blessings and live for ever!”

The twins grew strong. Wherever they played in the fields and lanes, people stopped to admire them and marvelled at the potter’s luck. When they were about twelve, the potter fell gravely ill, and it was clear he would not recover. “My dear,” he said to his wife, “I am going the way of all living things, but I am leaving you enough to live on. Stay alive and look after the children.”

“I will not outlive you,” she answered. “I am determined to die with you, as a faithful wife, on the same funeral fire. The children are old enough to look after themselves, and you are leaving them money enough.” Her friends tried to talk her out of it, but she would not listen, and when the potter died she gave her life beside him at his funeral.

The boy with the moon on his forehead always kept his head wrapped in a turban so that the light would not attract attention. Now he and his sister sold the potter’s wheel, pots and pans, and went to live in the bazaar of the king’s city. The moment they walked in, the whole bazaar lit up. The shopkeepers were astonished and thought some heavenly beings had come among them. They begged the brother and sister to stay and built them a house. Wherever the twins went, the woman in leather who scared crows for the king followed at a distance, and for some reason she could not explain, she liked to linger near their house.

Before long the boy bought a horse and went hunting in the nearby forests. One day the king was hunting in the same forest and rode over to the young huntsman. He was struck by the boy’s beauty and felt a strange longing for him. A deer ran past, and as the youth drew his bow and shot, the jolt knocked off his turban, and a light like moonlight shone from his forehead. The king at once thought of the son with the moon on his forehead and stars in his palms who was to have been born to his seventh queen. But the youth galloped away after his arrow, though the king called to him to wait.

The king rode home sadder than he had set out and sank into gloom. When the six queens asked what was wrong, he told them about the boy with the moon on his forehead and how he had reminded him of the son the seventh queen should have borne. The queens tried to comfort him, but secretly they were alarmed. Could the twins be alive? Hadn’t the midwife sworn she had burned them both? They sent for her. She insisted she had seen them burn, but promised to find out who the youth was.

Asking about, the midwife soon learned that two strangers were living in the bazaar in a house the shopkeepers had built. She went there and found only the girl, because her brother was out hunting. She pretended to be their aunt, who had gone away to another part of the country soon after their birth and had been searching for them ever since. She praised the girl’s beauty. “My darling, you are so lovely that you need the kataki flower to set off your looks. Tell your brother to plant a row of it in this courtyard.”

“What flower is that, auntie? I have never seen it.”

“How could you have, child? It does not grow here. It grows across the ocean, guarded by seven hundred Rakshasas.”

“Then how can my brother get it?”

“He might try, if you ask him,” said the woman, hoping the boy would be killed trying to fetch it.

When the youth came home, his sister told him about their aunt’s visit and asked him to bring her the kataki flower if he could. He doubted they had any aunt in the world, but to please his beloved sister he decided to get the flower she longed for. The next morning, telling her not to set foot outside until he came home, he rode off on his swift horse, which was of the winged pakshiraj breed. He soon reached the edge of what looked like an endless forest, and saw Rakshasas prowling there.

He rode a little way off, shot some deer and rhinoceroses in the thickets, then went near the Rakshasas and called out, “Auntie dear, auntie dear, your nephew is here!”

A huge Rakshasi came towards him. “Oh, you are the youth with the moon on your forehead and stars on the palms of your hands. We were all expecting you, but since you have called me aunt, I will not eat you. What do you want? Have you brought me anything to eat?” He gave her the deer and rhinoceroses. Her mouth watered, and she gulped down every one. “Well, what is it you want?”

“I want some kataki flowers for my sister.”

She told him that would be hard, since the flower was guarded by seven hundred Rakshasas, but he could try. First, though, he must visit his uncle on the north side of the forest. On the way the youth shot more deer and rhinoceroses, and when he saw a gigantic Rakshasa in the distance he shouted, “Uncle dear, uncle dear, your nephew is here! Auntie sent me to you.”

The Rakshasa came up to him. “You are the youth with the moon on your forehead and stars in your palms. I would have swallowed you whole if you hadn’t called me uncle and said your aunt had sent you. What do you want?” He ate all the game the youth offered and then listened to his request.

“The kataki flower! Very well, try to get it if you can. Beyond this forest you will come to a forest of kachiri so thick that nothing can pass through it. Say to it, ‘O mother kachiri, please make way for me, or I shall die,’ and it will open a path for you. Next you will reach the ocean. Say to it, ‘O mother ocean, please make way for me, or I shall die,’ and the ocean will let you through. Across the ocean are the gardens where the kataki blooms. Goodbye, and do as I have told you.”

The youth thanked his Rakshasa uncle and went on. Beyond the forest stood the kachiri, so dense and so bristling with thorns that not even a mouse could squeeze through. He folded his hands before it and said, “O mother kachiri, please make way for me, or I shall die.” At once a clear path opened, and he rode gladly through. Then the ocean lay before him. “O mother ocean, make way for me, or I shall die,” he said, and the water rose up on either side like two walls, leaving a dry road between them, and he crossed without wetting his feet.

Right in front of him were the gardens of the kataki flower. Inside the wall he found a vast palace that seemed empty. Going from room to room, he came upon a young lady of unearthly beauty asleep on a golden bed. Beside her lay two little sticks, one silver near her feet and one gold near her head. He picked them up to look at them, and the gold stick slipped from his hand and fell on her feet. Instantly she woke and sat up.

“Stranger, how did you come to this dreadful place? I know who you are and all about you. You are the youth with the moon on your forehead and stars on the palms of your hands. Run, run away! Seven hundred Rakshasas live here guarding the kataki gardens. They are out hunting and will be home at sunset, and if they find you they will eat you. A Rakshasi carried me off from the world of men, where my father is a king. She loves me dearly and will not let me go. Every morning when she goes out she kills me with these sticks, and every evening when she comes home she brings me back to life with them. Run, or you will die!”

The youth told her how his sister longed for the kataki flower, and how he had come through the kachiri forest and across the ocean. He said he would not leave without her. They spent the rest of the day wandering in the gardens together. When it was nearly time for the Rakshasas to return, he touched her head with the gold stick so that she lay lifeless as before, and hid himself under a great heap of kataki flowers in the next room.

Just after sunset he heard a roar like a mighty storm: the seven hundred Rakshasas were coming home. One of them went into the lady’s room and brought her back to life. “I smell a human, I smell a human,” she said.

“How could a human get here?” the lady answered. “I am the only human here.”

The Rakshasi lay down on the floor and asked the lady to rub her legs. As she rubbed, the lady let a tear fall on the Rakshasi’s leg. “Why are you crying, my dear child?” asked the demon. “Is something troubling you?”

“No, mother. What could trouble me, when you take such good care of me? I was only wondering what will happen to me when you die.”

“When I die, child? Well, every creature dies, of course, but a Rakshasa never will. You know the deep pond in the middle of these gardens. At the bottom is a wooden box with two bees in it, a male and a female. Fate has decreed that if a human with the moon on his forehead and stars on the palms of his hands came here, dived into that pond, took the box and crushed both bees without letting one drop of their blood touch the ground, we would all die. But that can never happen. No such human exists. And if he did, he could never get here past the seven hundred of us, the deep ocean, the kachiri forest and the guards beyond it. Even if he got here, he would hardly know the secret of the box, and even if he knew it, he would hardly kill the bees without spilling a drop. And if a drop did fall, we would tear him into seven hundred pieces. So you see, child, we are as good as immortal. Put your fears away.”

The next morning the Rakshasi got up, laid the lady lifeless with the sticks, and went off hunting with the others. The youth came out from under the flowers and brought the lady back to life, and she told him every word the Rakshasi had said. It was exactly what he needed to know. Without wasting a moment he shut the heavy garden gates, dived into the pond and brought up the wooden box. He opened it and caught the two bees just as they tried to escape. He crushed them between his palms and smeared every drop of their blood over his body.

At that instant a terrible wailing and groaning rose all round the gardens. Just as fate had decreed, all the Rakshasas came up to the gardens and dropped dead. The youth gathered as many kataki flowers and seeds as he could carry and left the palace with the beautiful lady, past great heaps of fallen giants. The ocean drew back for him, the kachiri forest opened its path, and the happy pair reached the house in the bazaar, where his sister welcomed them.

The next morning the youth went hunting as usual, and the king was in the forest too. A deer ran by, the youth shot, his turban fell off as it always did, and the bright light shone out. The king watched in wonder and asked the youth to stop, because he wanted to be his friend. This time the youth told him to come to his house and gave him directions.

The king came at midday. The lady from beyond the ocean, whose name was Pushpavati, knew the whole story, and she told it to the king: how the six queens had persuaded the seventh queen to ring the bell twice too soon, how she had borne a beautiful boy and girl, how puppies had been put in their place, how the twins had been saved by a miracle in the potter’s house and kindly treated in the bazaar, and how the youth with the moon on his forehead had rescued her from the Rakshasas.

The king was furious with the six queens, and the next day he had them put to death. The seventh queen was brought back from the market-place and given back her place as queen. And the youth with the moon on his forehead, the lovely Pushpavati and his sister all lived together in happiness.

Where this story comes from

“The Boy with the Moon on His Forehead” is one of the longest tales in Lal Behari Day’s Folk-Tales of Bengal. Day’s historical notes gloss kataki as Calotropis gigantea and kachiri as Arum fornicatum; these are the edition’s identifications, not a modern botanical verification. The same notes explain pakshiraj as a fabulous swift horse, literally ‘king of birds.’

Some events in Day’s text are harsh: the potter’s widow dies on her husband’s funeral pyre, and the six queens are buried alive at the end. This page mentions the widow’s death without detail and says only that the queens were put to death. The tale is long and sometimes frightening, so it suits older readers best.

Read the original: Lal Behari Day, Folk-Tales of Bengal (Project Gutenberg #38488, 1912 edition)

Reading guidance: Older teen and adult readers; includes attempted infant killing, severe abuse of a mother, a widow’s death on a funeral pyre, repeated magical killing and execution. The suicide and punishments are not models of duty or justice. Removed from child age categories.

A closer reading

The golden bell begins as protection against the queen’s enemies, but those enemies turn it into a reason for the king to withdraw protection. The narrative explicitly says he hears the final call and chooses not to come. The queens and midwife organize the deception, yet his refusal and later punishment of the mother also require judgment. Restoring her rank does not erase the years of suffering.

Kinship language works in opposite ways across the two halves. The midwife’s false claim to be an aunt sends the boy into danger; calling the Rakshasa guardians aunt and uncle gains him help. Pushpavati then obtains the hidden-life secret and supplies the final account that restores the twins’ identity. The boy’s bravery depends on other people’s information, especially hers.

The ending is retribution, not forgiveness: the six queens are executed. The potter’s widow’s death on the funeral pyre is another severe historical story element, not a model of marital faithfulness. Neither the tale’s restored royal family nor its magical rescues should obscure those losses.

Try this with the story

Build a timeline of the bell, substituted puppies, miraculous potter’s kiln, moon-mark recognition and Pushpavati’s testimony. For each, note who knows the truth and who withholds or misreads it. Then compare the two uses of ‘aunt’ and explain why the word alone cannot establish trust.

Questions to ask

• How do the six queens turn a protective bell into a trap?
• What responsibility does the king retain for ignoring the genuine call?
• How does Pushpavati contribute both to escape and to recognition?
• Why is a forgiveness moral inaccurate for this ending?

Related stories

• Life’s Secret — a Day tale where a life is hidden in a box inside a fish
• The Boy Whom Seven Mothers Suckled — another hero born to a wronged queen who outwits demons
• The Field of Bones — a city of Rakshasas and a princess to be rescued