Long, long ago, there lived a king. A Rakshasi, or man-eating ogress, living in a nearby forest spotted the king while he was hunting. She fell in love with the king and wanted to marry him. She morphed into a beautiful woman and accompanied the king to his palace, where the pregnant queen lived.
Every night, the Rakshasi would change back into her real form as an ogress and hunt the elephants, horses, and cattle that lived nearby. One night, she devoured the elephant in the palace. However, the palace guards saw her doing so. To avoid getting caught, she transformed into the expecting queen. She then rushed into the queen’s room.
The palace guards mistook the queen for the ogress and followed her in. In the sleeping queen’s chamber, the ogress daubed the queen’s face with blood and hid in a corner. Hearing the knock on the door, the pregnant queen opened the door to the guards. They saw blood all over her clothes and face. The shocked guards immediately imprisoned her. They also gouged her eyes out and sent them to her older sister.
The pregnant queen delivered a baby boy in prison. He grew up listening to the story about his mother wolfing down the royal elephant. When he admonished everyone for saying that about his mother, he was forced into exile in the forest. Soon, he learned how the ogress disguised as the queen and killed royal animals. He resolved to relieve his mother from her suffering.
Wandering the woods, he got to a cave. The ogress living in the cave took care of him. He found that she was also looking after a girl in the cave. One day, the girl told the prince that she, too, was a princess and the ogress had brought her there to eat her.
Both of them decided to find out where the ogress kept her life-index. The girl went crying to the ogress that night. She wanted to know who would look after her if the ogress were to pass away suddenly.
‘My life-index is safely hidden in a banyan tree that is beyond the seven seas. The bhootas, or ghosts, protect it in the form of two bees, so no harm can befall me.’
The boy crossed the seven seas and reached the banyan tree. He caught the two bees and put them in a sealed box. Using his magical powers, he got to the cave where the girl was kept. The boy transformed into a bee and fought with another bee, killing it in the process.
After killing the bee, he morphed into a horse and made it to the prison where his mother was kept. He now opened the box and crushed the other bee. The dead bee transformed into the ogress living in the palace. The boy now removed the noose from his mother’s neck. He even helped her regain her eyesight and the two lived happily ever after.
Kalai is passionate about reading and reinterpreting folk tales from all over the country. Write to her at kalai.muse@gmail.com to know more about her.
Folk tale adopted and abridged from The Raksasi-Queen by Alakammal.