The Charmed Ring

A merchant gave his son three hundred rupees to start him off in life and told him to go to another country and try his luck at trade. The son took the money and set off.

He had not gone far when he came upon some herdsmen arguing over a dog. Some of them wanted to kill it. “Please don’t kill the dog,” begged the tender-hearted young man. “I’ll give you a hundred rupees for it.” The deal was done on the spot, and the young man took the dog and went on his way. Next he met some people arguing over a cat. Some wanted to kill it and some did not. “Oh, please don’t kill it,” he said. “I’ll give you a hundred rupees for it.” Of course they handed over the cat and took the money. He went on until he came to a village where people were arguing over a snake they had just caught. Some wanted to kill it and some did not. “Please don’t kill the snake,” he said. “I’ll give you a hundred rupees.” The people agreed at once, and they were delighted.

All his trading money was now gone, and he decided to return to his father. So home he went.

“You fool! You good-for-nothing!” shouted his father when he heard how his son had wasted the money. “Go and live in the stables and think about what you’ve done. You’ll never set foot in my house again.”

So the young man went to live in the stables. His bed was the cattle’s straw, and his only companions were the dog, the cat and the snake that had cost him so dear. The animals grew very fond of him. They followed him about all day and slept beside him at night: the cat at his feet, the dog at his head, and the snake across his body, with its head hanging down one side and its tail down the other.

One day the snake said to him, “I am the son of Raja Indrasha. One day I came up out of the ground to get some air, and some people grabbed me. They would have killed me if you had not come along just in time. I don’t know how I can ever repay you. If only you knew my father! How glad he would be to meet the man who saved his son!”

“Where does he live? I’d like to meet him if I can,” said the young man.

“Good!” said the snake. “Do you see that mountain over there? At the foot of it is a sacred spring. If you dive into the spring with me, we will both reach my father’s country. He will want to reward you. If he asks what you would like, you might do well to say, ‘The ring on your right hand, and your famous pot and spoon.’ If you have those, you will never want for anything. You only have to speak to the ring, and a beautiful furnished house will appear for you. And the pot and the spoon will give you every kind of rare and delicious food.”

With his three companions, the young man walked to the spring and got ready to jump in. “Oh master!” cried the cat and the dog. “What shall we do? Where shall we go?”

“Wait for me here,” he said. “I’m not going far, and I won’t be long.” With that he dived into the water and disappeared.

“What do we do now?” said the dog to the cat.

“We stay here, as our master told us,” said the cat. “Don’t worry about food. I’ll go to people’s houses and get plenty for both of us.” And so she did, and the two of them lived quite comfortably until their master came back.

The young man and the snake arrived safely, and word was sent to the raja, who ordered his son and the stranger to come before him. But the snake refused. It said it could not go to its father until this stranger set it free, for he had saved it from a terrible death and it was now his servant. So the raja came himself. He hugged his son, greeted the stranger, and welcomed him to his kingdom. The young man stayed for a few days, and the raja gave him the ring from his right hand and the pot and the spoon, to thank him for saving his son. Then he went home. When he came up out of the spring, he found the dog and the cat waiting for him. They told each other everything that had happened, and they were all very glad. Then they walked together to the riverside to try out the magic ring and the pot and spoon.

The merchant’s son spoke to the ring, and at once a beautiful house appeared, and a lovely princess with golden hair. He spoke to the pot and the spoon, and the most delicious food appeared. So he married the princess, and they lived very happily for several years.

Then one morning, as the princess was doing her hair, she put the loose hairs into a hollow piece of reed and threw it into the river that flowed under her window. The reed floated many miles downstream, until the prince of that country picked it up, opened it out of curiosity, and saw the golden hair. He rushed back to the palace, locked himself in his room, and would not come out. He had fallen madly in love with the woman whose hair he had found, and he refused to eat or drink or sleep or move until she was brought to him.

His father the king did not know what to do. He was afraid his son would die. At last he went for advice to his aunt, who was an ogress. The old woman told him not to worry, for she was sure she could get the beautiful woman for his son.

She turned herself into a bee and flew off, buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. Her sharp sense of smell soon led her to the princess, and there she took the shape of an old woman leaning on a stick. “I am your aunt,” she told the princess. “You have never seen me, because I left the country just after you were born.” And she hugged and kissed the princess to make her story sound true. The princess was completely fooled. She invited the old woman to stay as long as she liked and treated her with such honour that the ogress thought, “This will be easy.”

After three days, the ogress began to talk about the magic ring. “You should keep it yourself,” she said. “Your husband is always out hunting. He might lose it.” So the princess asked her husband for the ring, and he gave it to her without a second thought. The ogress waited one more day and then asked to see it. Suspecting nothing, the princess showed it to her. The ogress snatched it, turned back into a bee, and flew away to the palace, where the prince lay almost at death’s door.

“Get up! Be happy! Mourn no more,” she told him. “The woman you long for will come when you call. Here is the charm that will bring her.” The prince was wild with joy. He spoke to the ring at once, and the house came down in the middle of the palace garden with the princess inside. He went straight in, told her how much he loved her, and begged her to marry him. She could see no way out, so she agreed, on condition that he wait one month.

Meanwhile, the merchant’s son came home from hunting and found his house and his wife gone. Only the empty spot was left, just as it had been before he ever tried the ring. He sat down in despair, wishing he were dead. Then the cat and the dog came up. They had run off and hidden when they saw the house vanish. “Oh master,” they said, “don’t give up! This is a terrible blow, but it can be put right. Give us one month, and we will go and try to bring back your wife and your house.”

“Go,” he said, “and may God help you. Bring back my wife, and I will live.”

So the cat and the dog ran off and did not stop until they reached the place where their mistress and the house had been taken. “This may be difficult,” said the cat. “The king has taken our master’s wife and house. You wait here, and I’ll go and try to see her.” The dog sat down, and the cat climbed up the wall to the window of the princess’s room and slipped inside. The princess knew the cat at once and told it everything that had happened.

“But is there no way to escape from these people?” she asked.

“Yes,” said the cat, “if you can tell me where the magic ring is.”

“The ogress has swallowed it,” said the princess.

“All right,” said the cat, “I’ll get it back. Once we have it, everything is ours.” She climbed down and lay beside a rat hole, pretending to be dead. Now it so happened that a great wedding was going on among the rats. The eldest son of the king of the rats was getting married, and all the rats for miles around had gathered in that very hole. When the wedding procession came pouring out, squeaking and leaping to celebrate, the cat spotted the bridegroom and pounced on him.

“Oh, let me go, let me go!” cried the terrified rat. “Oh, let him go!” squeaked all the guests. “It’s his wedding day!”

“No,” said the cat, “not unless you do something for me. The ogress who lives in that house has swallowed a ring that I want very much. Get it for me, and I’ll let him go unharmed.”

“Very well,” they all said. “If we don’t get the ring for you, you can eat us all!”

That was a bold promise, but they kept it. At midnight, when the ogress was fast asleep, one of the rats crept up onto her face and tickled the inside of her throat with its tail. The ogress coughed and coughed, and the ring flew out and rolled across the floor. The rat grabbed it and ran to its king, who was very glad and went straight to the cat to free his son.

As soon as the cat had the ring, she set off with the dog to take the good news to their master. “How glad he will be!” they thought, and ran as fast as their legs would carry them. On the way they had to cross a stream. The dog swam, and the cat rode on his back. But the dog was jealous of the cat. He demanded the ring and threatened to throw her into the water if she did not hand it over. So she gave it to him, and at once he dropped it, and a fish swallowed it.

“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” wailed the dog.

“What’s done is done,” said the cat. “We must try to get it back. I have a plan. Go and bring me a dead lamb.”

The dog ran off and soon came back with a dead lamb. The cat crawled inside it and lay still, and told the dog to go a little way off and keep quiet. Before long a nadhar came hovering over the lamb. The nadhar is a bird whose stare, people said, can break a fish’s bones. It swooped down to carry the lamb away, and out jumped the cat and seized it. She threatened to kill the bird unless it found the lost ring. The nadhar promised at once. It flew to the king of the fishes and ordered him to search for the ring and return it, and the king of the fishes did, and the ring was carried back to the cat.

“Come on, I’ve got the ring,” said the cat to the dog.

“No,” said the dog. “Not unless you let me carry it. I can carry it as well as you can. Give it to me or I’ll kill you.” So the cat had to hand it over, and the careless dog soon dropped it again. This time a kite swooped down, picked it up and carried it off.

“Look, look, there it goes, to that big tree!” cried the cat.

“Oh, oh, what have I done?” howled the dog.

“You silly thing, I knew this would happen,” said the cat. “Now stop barking, or you’ll scare the bird off somewhere we can’t follow.”

The cat waited until it was quite dark. Then she climbed the tree, pounced on the kite, and took back the ring. “Come on,” she said to the dog when she reached the ground. “We must hurry. We’ve been delayed, and our master will be dying of grief and worry.”

The dog was thoroughly ashamed of himself by now. He begged the cat’s pardon for all the trouble he had caused, and he did not dare ask for the ring a third time. So they reached their sad master safely and gave him the precious charm. In a moment, his sorrow turned to joy. He spoke to the ring, and his beautiful wife and his house appeared, and everyone was as happy as could be.

About this tale

Joseph Jacobs included this tale in Indian Fairy Tales (1892). He took it from Folk-Tales of Kashmir (1888), by the missionary J. Hinton Knowles, who wrote down stories told to him in Kashmir.

The tale of a magic ring stolen and won back by grateful animals is told across Asia and Europe. Jacobs noted that in many versions, as here, the cat is the clever one and the dog loses the ring through jealousy.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, ed., Indian Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg #7128)

Reading guidance: For ages 9–12 with an adult. The story includes threatened animal killings, abduction into an unwanted marriage, a dead lamb used as a hiding place and a distressed character wishing for death.

A closer reading

The three purchases fail as a trading venture but succeed in saving lives. The animals’ later devotion tests the father’s judgment that the money was wholly wasted. Within the fairy tale, different kinds of value become convertible: money saves the snake, the snake’s family supplies magical security, and the cat’s initiative retrieves that security when it is lost.

The rescue is not one uninterrupted act of loyalty. The dog threatens his companion twice because he wants the ring, and his jealousy creates new dangers. The cat repairs the damage, but also coerces the rats and a bird by threatening their lives. Gratitude explains why the principal helpers begin; it does not make every action they take kind.

The princess negotiates a month’s delay after being transported against her will and gives the cat the information needed for recovery. Her mistaken trust in a supposed relative does not make her responsible for the prince’s coercion. The tale’s magical arrival of a bride and later struggle over her also invite readers to ask where her own wishes are heard.

Try this with the story

Draw the ring’s route from ogress to rats, cat, dog, fish, bird, cat, dog, kite and cat. At each transfer mark help, threat, accident or theft. Compare that detailed route with the simple claim that ‘loyal animals save the day.’

Questions to ask

• Why did the young man spend all his money on the animals?
• How did the ogress trick the princess into giving up the ring?
• Why do you think the dog kept asking to carry the ring?

You may also like

• The Cat, the Mouse, the Lizard, and the Owl — another Indian tale about a clever cat
• The Beetle And The Silken Thread — another tale where a small creature saves the day
• Wali Dad the Simple-Hearted — another tale of a poor man, a princess and a bit of magic