The Inauspicious Bride | A Folk Tale from Kashmir

A long time ago, there was a tiny village at the foothills of the mountains. The village had no roads except the beaten track along the bank of the stream. Other villages were quite far away, and they weren’t easily accessible. The village folks lived around a shrine dedicated to a local saint.

A priest lived in the nearby village. The priest would come to this remote village to perform religious rituals and ceremonies. No marriage took place in the village without his approval.

There was also a young peddler in the village. He visited the nearby villages to sell bangles, toys, mirrors, and trinkets. The peddler married a young girl whom many people regarded as a rustic beauty. Both sets of parents agreed to the marriage and, in a hurry to solemnize their marriage, the young peddler’s parents forgot to inform and get the approval from the priest. This incensed the priest.

Meanwhile, the young peddler returned to the village with the bride. As the couple had married in the bride’s village, the peddler’s parents decided to invite everyone in the village for the wedding feast. The peddler’s father wanted to request the priest to come and bless the newly-weds and grace the occasion with his presence.

The information reached the priest even before the peddler’s father could personally invite him. The priest accepted the invite and showed up at the wedding feast. The bride came and sat before the priest to get his blessings and approval for the marriage. The priest was taken aback by the bride’s beauty. After all, she had long eyelashes, ruby lips and dimples on her cheeks! Far from blessing her, he asked her to leave the room instead.

When the young peddler and his father asked why the priest didn’t bless the bride, he told them that she was inauspicious for their family. The father immediately asked for a remedy to ward off the evil influence. The priest asked them to get rid of her at any cost so no hard would befall the peddler.

The young peddler and his parents hesitated. The priest made the most of this situation and ordered them to lock her up in a wooden box and set it afloat on the river at midnight. They did so, gagging her and then locking her inside a wooden box before sending the box down the river. The poor girl inside the box floated down the river helplessly until the sheer force of the current threw the box on the banks of the river. She didn’t know if she would survive the ordeal.

Drifting between consciousness and unconsciousness, she suddenly heard two men talking. She learned that the men were looking for a bear cub. They made a living by taming bears and making them perform tricks before crowds. They had come to the forest in search of another bear cub so that they could earn more. The men were discussing what could there be in the wooden box.

The faint rays of moonlight filtered through a crevice in the lid. When they broke open the lid, they were surprised to find a girl gagged and bound. The two men set her free and asked her to tell them what happened.

Fortunately for her, the men lived near her village, and they knew her father as well. They also knew the young peddler. Suspecting the priest to be responsible for this, they decided to teach him a lesson. They were almost certain that the priest was waiting for the box to drift somewhere downhill.

Instead of the young girl, they put a bear in the box and set it back afloat. As suspected, the priest was waiting for the box to come downstream. The men who accompanied the priest helped carry the box to his house. After sending them away, the priest bolted the door and opened the box eagerly. The bear sprang out of the box ferociously and wreaked havoc on the priest.

Meanwhile, the two men took the young girl to her parents and then to her husband, the peddler. The men narrated this tale wherever they went and made the bear reenact the crucial role he played in the saga. People enjoyed watching the bear and rewarded him well.