The Magic Fiddle

Seven brothers and one sister once lived together. The brothers were married, yet their wives did not cook for the household—the sister stayed home and did that work. The wives grew jealous and plotted to push her out so one of them could take her place. She never goes to the fields, they complained, yet meals are never ready on time. They called on their Bonga, vowed vows until they won his help, and asked that at midday, when she went for water, the pool should vanish at the sight of her pitcher and return only slowly—delay her, keep the water from entering her pot, and he might claim the maiden as his own.

At noon the water dried before her; she wept. Slowly it rose again. When it reached her ankles she tried to fill the pitcher, but it would not dip. Frightened, she cried to her brother that the water touched her ankles yet the pitcher would not fill. It rose to her knee; again she wailed that still the pot would not dip. To her waist—same cry. To her neck—same cry. At last the water stood a man’s height; she felt herself drowning and called that now the pitcher began to fill. It filled—and with it she sank and drowned. The Bonga made her a Bonga like himself and carried her off.

In time she reappeared as a bamboo on the embankment of that tank. When it grew huge, a Jogi who often passed thought it would make a splendid fiddle. He brought an axe; as he swung at the root the bamboo cried, cut higher; when he aimed high it cried, cut at the root—back and forth until he grew angry, sure a Bonga was mocking him. He cut at the root, carried the stem away, and made a fiddle of unmatched tone. Begging with it, he came home each evening with a full wallet.

Now and then his rounds brought him to the brothers’ house. The music moved them—some even to tears—for the fiddle seemed to wail in bitter anguish. The elder offered to keep the Jogi a whole year if he would sell; the Jogi, knowing its worth, refused.

Later he played at a village chief’s house and asked food. They offered a high price for the fiddle; he refused, for it was his living. Seeing coaxing fail, they gave him food and plenty of liquor. He drank until drunk. While he slept they took his fiddle and left their old one. When he woke and missed it, they denied the theft. He had to leave empty-handed. The chief’s son, a musician, played the stolen fiddle, and in his hands its music delighted all who heard.

When the household worked in the fields, the Bonga girl would step out of the bamboo fiddle, cook the family meal, eat her share, set the young chief’s portion under his bed covered from dust, and slip back into the instrument. Day after day the family guessed some girl friend was showing interest, and did not dig deeper. The young chief resolved to watch and catch her—even to thrash her for shaming him before the others. He hid in a pile of firewood.

Soon she came out, dressed her hair, cooked rice as usual, ate, set his share under the bed, and was about to re-enter when he sprang and caught her. “Fie! You may be a Dom or a Hadi—someone I cannot marry!” she cried. “No,” he said. “From today you and I are one.” They spoke lovingly together. When the others returned that evening and saw she was both human and Bonga, they rejoiced.

In time her own family grew very poor. Once her brothers visited the chief’s house. She knew them at once; they did not know her. She brought water, set cooked rice before them, sat near, and in wailing tones upbraided them for all their wives had done—and for their failure to save her. That was all the revenge she took.

Where this tale comes from

“The Magic Fiddle” is a Santal tale. Joseph Jacobs took it, “with some verbal alterations,” from A. Campbell’s Santal Folk-Tales (1892) for his Indian Fairy Tales of the same year. Jacobs’s note describes the Bonga in this tale as a spirit associated with rice land and locates his source community in the Santal Parganas. This historical note is not a complete account of Santal religious life or communities today.

Jacobs conjectured that an ending had been lost because he expected the fiddle to denounce the sisters-in-law, as in the European ‘Singing Bone’ tales. That expectation does not prove this telling is incomplete. The drowning is told plainly and briefly, and the girl’s only revenge is to reproach her brothers.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Indian Fairy Tales, 1892 (Project Gutenberg #7128)

Reading guidance: for mature readers. The story includes a planned drowning, threatened beating, theft, coercive capture and caste prejudice in the marriage dialogue.

A closer reading

The girl’s domestic work remains visible through every transformation. The wives resent her place in the household; after becoming a fiddle, she again emerges to prepare meals. The question is therefore not only how she returns to human company, but whether those around her see the person doing the work. The chief’s son initially treats the unexplained meals as an embarrassment rather than a gift.

The fiddle carries anguish before the girl can speak openly. Her brothers respond to its sound without recognizing her, and the chief’s household steals the instrument from the musician whose livelihood depends on it. The eventual reunion does not settle that theft. Nor is the caste objection in the marriage dialogue a measure of anyone’s worth; it records a hierarchy within the telling.

At the end she herself names the wrong and reproaches her brothers. That gives this version a meaningful resolution even though it differs from the denunciation Jacobs expected an instrument to perform. Her limited revenge is her choice; survivors of harm need not forgive or remain gentle to deserve protection.

Try this with the story

Follow how the girl’s distress is heard at the pool, in the bamboo, through the fiddle and at the final meal. Note who hears each expression and whether they understand it. Use the final scene to argue whether the tale needs the additional ending Jacobs imagined.

Talk about it

• How does the girl’s work connect the opening household with her later life at the chief’s house?
• What do the brothers hear in the fiddle before they recognize their sister?
• Does the girl’s final spoken reproach provide an ending of its own, even without the instrument accusing anyone?

Related stories

• The Juniper-Tree — a Grimm tale where a murdered child returns in another form and reveals the truth
• The Son of Seven Mothers — a Punjabi tale of jealous wives and a lost child who sets things right
• Mother Holle — a girl falls into a well and finds a magic world below