THE OGRE
THE OGRE
Bengali fairytales are incomplete without monsters, demons, ogres and ogresses. The ogre is one such fairytale.
THE OGRE
DALIM KUMAR
In a kingdom lived a king, a queen and a prince. The life of the queen was locked in a pasha (a board of dice game). The ogress who lived on the palm tree in the palace garden knew this. One day when the king was away on a hunting trip, the ogress came to Dalimkumar. He was playing a dice game on his pasha with his friends. The ogress took the form of a beggar woman and begged for the pasha. Dalimkumar didn’t know anything and gave away the pasha to the ogress. She blew away the pasha board and sent it to the land of Pashaboti, an ogress princess.
THE OGRE AND THE OGRESS
At once the queen fell lifeless on her bed and the ogress quickly entered into her body. Nobody understood anything. The queen did everything as usual. In the evening she stood beside the table when her husband and her son ate. Only Dalimkumar noticed a drop of saliva fell on his plate from his mother’s mouth. He felt uncanny and left the table without finishing the food. Everything remained as it is. Only the palm tree in the garden started drying up and fell uprooted on the ground.
STORY OF THE OGRE
The ogress then opened a small box. Inside it was a thread-conch snake. It looked like a thread and its sound was like that of a conch. The ogress gave a letter to thread-conch snake and ordered it to give it to Pashaboti. Thread-conch snake travelled all day and all night. At last it reached a royal garden and coiled itself inside an apple to take rest. The princess woke up like every morning and went to the garden. Like every morning she took an apple from the tree and ate it. Thread-conch snake went inside her tummy along with the fruit.
LAND OF THE OGRE
Years passed by. The queen gave birth to seven sons. The king was very happy. Gradually the seven little princes grew up. One day all the princes decided to travel around the world. With the permission of the king they left one fine morning. As soon as they left, the ogress queen came to the flight of stairs with a seed of pomegranate. She ordered the staircase to open up and inside the crack she hid the pomegranate seed.
QUEEN OF THE OGRE
The princes were passing through a forest. In the forest Dalimkumar suddenly lost his eyesight. He called his brothers but nobody replied. A mighty storm blew away all the seven princes and their horses to the land of Pashaboti. Dalimkumar couldn’t see anything. He rode for a long time and reached a country. It was the country of ‘no king’. Every evening the royal elephant select a man for a king. The people of that country crown him as the king. But the next morning they find nothing but his bones in the room. Nobody knows what happens at night. The queen even doesn’t know anything.
THE OGRE KING
That day the royal elephant chose Dalimkumar. Like every other day the people crowned him the king. He even married the queen as the ritual. At night suddenly he woke up hearing a terrible hissing sound. As he was blind he could not see anything. He waved his sword in the direction of the sound. As his sword touched the snake he got back his eyesight.
THE OGRE AND DALIMKUMAR
He saw a huge snake coming out of the nostril of his queen. He at once killed the snake. From the stomach of the snake he got the letter written by the ogress queen. He read it and understood everything. Next morning the people of the country were overjoyed to see their king alive. Celebration started in the country.
THE OGRE LAND
The storm brought all the seven princes in the land of Pashaboti. She told the princes that if they had any letter she along with her six sisters would marry them. But if they had no letter then they would have to play a game of dice with her. If they win she and her sisters would marry them or else they would gobble them up. The princes had no letter. It was lost along with the thread-conch snake. So they had to play. Pashaboti easily deafeated them and ate them up with their horses.
THE OGRE AND OTHER TALES
Dalimkumar told his people that he had to leave immediately to save his brothers. Everyone was sad but he promised to return soon. Dalimkumar rode his horse and went straight to the land of Pashaboti. He accepted the challenge of Pashaboti and sat to play the game of dice. As soon as Dalimkumar saw the board he recognized it. But while playing he noticed a rat.
STORY OF THE OGRE
It came every everytime and distracted Dalimkumar from playing. No doubt he lost the game. He told Pashaboti to give him another chance. He gave her his horse and promised to return the next day. The next day he brought with him a cat. That day the too the rat came but the cat pounced upon it and tore it into pieces.
THE OGRE AND THE GIANT
As there were no rats to disturb, Dalimkumar very easily won the dice game. Now this rat was none other than the ogress queen. He then asked Pashaboti to return him back his horse, all his seven brothers and their horses. Pashaboti and her six sisters returned him back all whom they had eaten up. Dalimkumar then tore the board into pieces and with that Pashaboti and her sisters turned into seven earthworms. Back in the palace of Dalimkumar, the real queen sat up on her bed from her long sleep.
THE OGRE AND FAIRIES
Dalimkumar kept his promise and returned back to his new kingdom and his queen. He joined both the kingdom and they all lived happily ever after.
