The Two Brothers

There was once a king who had two sons. They were good boys who sat at their lessons every day, learning everything a prince ought to know. But while they were still young, their mother the queen died, and before long the king married again.

The new queen was jealous of the two princes, and she soon began to treat them cruelly. First she gave them cakes of coarse barley instead of good wheat. Then she left the salt out. After a while the flour was sour and crawling with weevils. Things went from bad to worse, until she started beating the boys, and when they cried, she went to the king and complained that they were rude and sulky, so that he grew angry and beat them too.

At last the brothers decided that something had to be done.

“Let’s go out into the world,” said the younger, “and make our own way.”

“Yes!” cried the elder. “Let’s go this minute, and never eat another crumb in this house!”

“Wait, brother,” said the younger, who was wise for his age. “Remember the old saying: never set out on an empty stomach, whether it is winter or summer.”

So they ate their bread, poor as it was, and then climbed up together on one pony and rode off to seek their fortune.

They travelled for a long time through dry, empty country until they stopped to rest under a large tree. Just then a starling and a parrot flew down onto its branches and began to squabble over the best perch.

“What cheek!” screeched the starling, shoving its way towards the top. “I am a very important bird. Anyone who eats me is sure to become prime minister!”

“Out of the way, you!” squawked the parrot, pushing it aside. “Anyone who eats me is sure to become a king!”

When the brothers heard this, they whipped out their crossbows, took aim together, and brought down both birds at the very same moment. But the two brothers loved each other so much that neither would admit to having shot the parrot, because each wanted the other to be king. Even when the birds were cooked and ready, they were still arguing.

At last the younger said, “Dear brother, we are wasting time. You are the elder, so by right it should be you.”

So the elder prince ate the parrot, the younger ate the starling, and they climbed back on their pony and rode on. But they had not gone far when the elder brother found he had lost his whip. He thought he must have left it under the tree, and said he would go back for it.

“No,” said the younger. “You are the king and I am only the minister, so it is my job to fetch it.”

“As you like,” said the elder. “Take the pony, so you can be quick. I will walk on to that town over there.”

So the younger prince rode back to the tree. But the tree belonged to a great snake-demon, which had come home while they were away. The moment the prince stepped into its shade, the monstrous serpent struck at him, and he fell down dead.

Meanwhile the elder prince strolled along the road and came at last to the town. He found it in an uproar. The old king had just died, and in the story’s kingdom a new king was chosen by the sacred elephant. All the people had walked past it in a long line, but the elephant had not knelt down and greeted any of them with its trunk, which was the sign that it had chosen a king. Everyone was worried, and an order had gone out that every stranger who came through the gates must be taken straight to the elephant.

So the moment the elder prince walked into the town, he was hustled off to the elephant, without much ceremony, for people were tired of being disappointed. But this time the fussy animal had found what it was looking for. As soon as it saw the prince, it dropped to its knees and swung its trunk to greet him. So the prince was made king that very day, and the whole town cheered.

All this while, the younger prince lay dead under the tree. His brother waited and searched for him, but he never came, and in the end the new king gave him up for lost and chose another prime minister.

Now there was a spring that bubbled up from the roots of the snake-demon’s tree, and one day a magician and his wife came to fetch water from it. They were wise people and were not afraid of the snakes. When the wife saw the young prince lying there, so young and so handsome, she felt very sorry for him.

“You are always boasting about how wise and powerful you are,” she said to her husband. “Prove it. Bring this poor boy back to life.”

At first the magician refused. But his wife laughed at him and said all his powers were make-believe, and that made him angry.

“Very well,” he said. “I cannot bring the dead back to life myself, but I can make others do it. Watch.”

He told his wife to dip her brass drinking bowl into the spring. As she did so, every drop of water in the spring flowed into the little bowl, and the spring ran dry.

“Now come home,” said the magician, “and you will see what you will see.”

When the snakes found their spring had dried up, they were miserable because their water supply had vanished. They put up with it for three days. Then they all came to the magician and promised to do anything he wished, if only he would give them back their water. He agreed, as long as they brought the dead prince back to life first. They did so gladly, and the magician emptied the bowl. The water flowed back into the spring, and the snakes drank their fill.

The young prince sat up, thinking he had just woken from a nap. Afraid that his brother would be cross at how long he had taken, he grabbed the whip, jumped onto the pony, which had been grazing quietly nearby all this time, and galloped off. But in his hurry he took the wrong road, and he came to a different city from the one where his brother was king.

By then it was evening. The prince had no money for food, but he saw a kind-looking old woman minding her goats, and he called to her. “Mother, if you will give me something to eat, you may keep this pony of mine. It is yours.”

The old woman agreed, and the prince went to stay in her house. She was very good to him. But after a day or two he noticed how sad she looked, and he asked her what was wrong.

“My son,” she said, with tears in her eyes, “there is an ogre in this kingdom. Every day he must be given a young man, a goat and a wheat cake to eat, and in return he leaves everyone else alone. Each household must take its turn to provide the meal, and anyone who refuses is put to death. Today it is my turn. I can make the cake, and I have a goat. But where am I to find a young man?”

“Why doesn’t somebody kill the ogre?” asked the prince.

“Many have tried, and all have failed, though the king has promised his daughter and half his kingdom to the man who does it. And now it is my turn, and I shall die, for where can I find a young man?” And she wept.

“Don’t cry, Granny,” said the prince. “You have been very kind to me, and I will do my best for you. I will be the ogre’s young man.”

At first the old woman would not hear of it. But he laughed at her fears and cheered her up until she gave in.

“Just one thing,” he said. “Make the wheat cake as big as you possibly can, and give me the biggest, fattest goat in your herd.”

She did as he asked. When everything was ready, the prince led the goat and carried the cake to the tree where the ogre came each evening for his dinner. He tied the goat to the tree, laid the cake on the ground, stepped back beyond the ditch that ran around the place, and waited.

Soon the ogre arrived, and a terrible sight he was. Usually he ate the young man first, because the cakes and goats were mostly small and poor. But tonight he saw the biggest cake and the fattest goat he had ever laid eyes on, and he went straight for them and gobbled them down. Just as he swallowed the last mouthful and looked around for the young man, the prince leapt at him with his sword. It was a dreadful fight. The ogre fought like the monster he was, but he was so stuffed with cake and goat that he was slow and clumsy, and after a long battle the prince struck him down. He cut off the ogre’s head as proof of his victory, wrapped it in his handkerchief, and then, worn out, lay down and fell fast asleep.

Every morning a man came to clear away the bones left over from the ogre’s dinner. This morning he was surprised to find so few, and as he looked around for more, he came upon the prince fast asleep with the ogre’s head beside him.

“Aha!” he thought. “Here’s my chance!”

The prince was so tired that he did not wake. The man picked him up, laid him gently in a clay pit nearby, and covered him over with clay. Then he took the ogre’s head to the king and claimed the reward: half the kingdom and the princess.

The king suspected that something was not right, but he had to keep his promise, at least about the kingdom. As for the princess, he could not bear to give her to such a man, so he said that she wished to wait a year before the wedding. So the false hero ruled half the kingdom and began making grand plans for his marriage.

Meanwhile, some potters came to dig clay from their pit and were astonished to find a handsome young man buried there, still breathing. They carried him home, and their wives looked after him until he came round. When he was well enough, he heard that the whole town was talking about how the man who cleared the bones had killed the ogre. The prince understood at once that he had been cheated. But he had no witness except himself, and he saw that it was no use arguing. So he gladly accepted when the potters offered to teach him their trade.

He sat at the potter’s wheel and turned out to be so skilled that the potters became famous for the beautiful shapes and patterns of their pots. Soon everyone was talking about the handsome young potter who had been found in the clay pit. The prince had told nobody what had really happened to him, but when the false hero heard about him, he decided to get rid of him before the truth could come out.

Just then the merchant ships that came to the city every year with goods and spices were stuck in the harbour. Day after day there was no wind, or it blew the wrong way, and the merchants feared they would not get home before the year was out. So they asked the soothsayers what to do, and the soothsayers said the ships would never leave the harbour until a life was given to the sea.

When the false hero heard this, he saw his chance. “Very well,” he said, “but do not give up one of our own citizens. Give the merchants that worthless young potter whom nobody knows.”

The courtiers praised him for being so thoughtful, and the prince was handed over to the merchants, who took him on board to be sacrificed. But he begged them to wait until evening, in case a wind sprang up, and they agreed to wait until sunset. When the sun went down with still no breath of wind, the prince pricked his little finger with a knife. The moment the first drop of blood fell, the sails of the first ship filled and she slipped out of the harbour. At the second drop, the second ship followed, and so on, until the whole fleet was sailing before a fine strong breeze.

The merchants were delighted to have someone who could call up the wind, and they took the greatest care of him. Soon they all grew fond of him, for he was a very likeable young man. At last they came to another city, and it was the very city where the prince’s brother had been made king by the elephant. The merchants went into town on business and left the prince to guard the ships.

He grew bored with watching, so he took some clay from the shore and began to model his father’s palace from memory. He became so absorbed that he made the most beautiful thing imaginable: the garden full of flowers, the king on his throne with his courtiers around him, even the two little princes at their lessons and the pigeons fluttering round the tower. When it was finished, he looked at it with tears in his eyes and sighed for the days that were gone.

At that very moment the prime minister’s daughter came by with her maids. She stared at the beautiful model in wonder, but when she saw the handsome, sad young man sighing beside it, she went straight home, locked her door and refused to eat a thing. Her worried father sent to ask what was wrong, and she sent back this answer: “Tell my father I will not eat or drink until he lets me marry the young man who sits sighing on the seashore beside a king’s palace made of clay.”

The prime minister was furious. But his daughter would not give in, so he pretended to agree. Secretly, though, he arranged with the merchants that right after the wedding the couple should board the ships, which would sail at once, and that at the first chance they should throw the young man overboard and bring his daughter home.

So the wedding took place, the ships set sail, and a day or two later the merchants pushed the young man into the sea as he sat at the front of the ship. But a rope happened to be hanging from his bride’s window at the back of the ship. As the prince drifted past, he caught hold of it and climbed into her cabin without being seen. She hid him in her big wooden chest. When food was brought to her, she pretended to be too sad to eat. “Leave it here,” she said. “Perhaps I shall feel hungry later.” Then she shared it with her husband.

The merchants, very pleased with themselves, turned the ships around and brought the bride and her chest home to her father, who paid them well. His daughter was happy too. As soon as she was back in her own rooms, she let her husband out of the chest and dressed him up as a maidservant, so that he could move about the palace safely.

The prince told his wife the whole story of his life, and when she told him how the king of her country had been chosen by an elephant, he began to feel sure that he had found his lost brother. He made a plan to find out. Every day a bunch of flowers was sent to the king from the prime minister’s garden. So one evening the prince, in his disguise, went to the gardener’s daughter as she was cutting flowers.

“Shall I show you a new way to arrange them?” he asked. And he tied them up in exactly the way his father’s gardener used to do.

Next morning, when the king saw the flowers, he went pale. “Who arranged these?” he asked the gardener.

“I did, Your Majesty,” said the gardener, trembling.

“That is not true!” said the king. “But go, and bring me another bunch exactly like it tomorrow, or you will be severely punished.”

That day the gardener’s daughter came to the disguised prince in tears, told him everything, and begged him to make another bunch to save her father. The prince gladly agreed, for now he was certain the king was his brother. He made an even lovelier bunch, and hid among the flowers a slip of paper with his name on it.

When the king found the paper, he went pale again. “Now I am sure you did not make this,” he said to the gardener. “But tell me the truth and I will forgive you.”

The gardener fell to his knees and confessed that one of the maidservants in the prime minister’s house had made it for his daughter. The king was astonished. He decided to disguise himself and go with the gardener’s daughter to pick flowers in the minister’s garden.

As soon as the prince saw him, he knew his brother. But he wanted to find out whether power and riches had made the king forget how much they had loved each other. So when the king asked where he had learned to arrange flowers, he did not answer directly. Instead he began to tell the story of his adventures, but he stopped after the parrot and the starling, saying he was too tired to go on and would tell more tomorrow. The king could hardly wait. The next evening the prince told of the ogre and the potters, and then said he was tired again. And so it went on, a little each night, until on the seventh day he finished with his marriage to the prime minister’s daughter and his disguise as a maid.

Then the king threw his arms around his brother’s neck and wept for joy. The prime minister, delighted to learn what a fine husband his daughter had found, gladly gave up his post to his son-in-law. So the words of the parrot and the starling came true, for one brother was king and the other was prime minister.

The king’s very first act was to send messengers to the land where the ogre was slain, to tell its king what had truly happened. His brother, the messengers said, was happy as prime minister and did not want half a kingdom. That king was so pleased that he offered his daughter to the young prince as a bride. The prince replied that he was married, but that his brother the king would be glad to marry her.

So there were great celebrations, and the man who had stolen the prince’s victory was punished as he deserved.

About this story

This tale comes from Tales of the Punjab, Told by the People, collected by Flora Annie Steel. In his notes R. C. Temple explains that the ogre is a rakhas, the rakshasa of Hindu legend, and relates the sacred elephant to accounts of royal white elephants trained to kneel and acknowledge a ruler. This is Temple’s contextual explanation; the tale’s election by elephant is a narrative device, not a general historical rule of succession. He also gives the old saying in verse behind the birds’ boasts: whoever eats a parrot under a tree will be a great king, and whoever eats a starling will be minister for life.

Some things are told more gently here. In the original the man who steals the prince’s victory is called a scavenger, an old word for someone who cleared away rubbish; here he is simply the man who cleared away the ogre’s bones. The king’s threat against the gardener is softened, and where the original says the cheat was put to death, this retelling says only that he was punished as he deserved.

Read the original: Flora Annie Steel, Tales of the Punjab (Project Gutenberg #6145, The Two Brothers)

Reading guidance: For mature readers. This long adventure includes child abuse, death and revival, human sacrifice, decapitation, burial alive, attempted drowning and a threatened execution in the source note.

A closer reading

The brothers begin by each offering the higher reward to the other. Their separation tests that affection across very unequal fortunes: the elder receives a crown quickly, while the younger repeatedly becomes useful to people who can discard him. The clay palace and flowers matter because they carry shared memories that rank, clothing and a stranger’s appearance cannot communicate.

Evidence changes hands throughout the younger brother’s journey. The stolen head gives a false claimant credit, while a name hidden in flowers lets the true prince control his own disclosure. Telling the story across seven evenings allows him to observe whether his brother remains interested before revealing who is speaking.

The reunion leaves difficult gaps. The merchants try to murder the man who saved their fleet, and the minister accepts his daughter’s husband only after learning his royal identity. Their earlier actions do not become acceptable when they welcome him. The potters and bride, by contrast, provide care before any public proof of royal status.

Try this with the story

List the helpers and betrayers beside what each knows about the young man’s identity. Compare the potters, merchants, bride and her father. Then choose one remembered detail from the clay palace or flowers and explain why it reaches the king more effectively than a claim to royal rank would.

Talk about it

• Why did neither brother want to admit he had shot the parrot?
• How did the magician make the snakes help him?
• How did the prince defeat the ogre, and how was his victory stolen?
• Why did the prince tell his story to the king a little at a time?
• What do you think the parrot and the starling had to do with what happened?

Related stories

• The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal — another tale from Tales of the Punjab
• The Soothsayer’s Son — another tale of a hero brought back to life
• The Ivory City And Its Fairy Princess — another Indian tale of a prince who goes out into the world