The Myth of Sisyphus and Prati Prasav

Ancient Greece has told some of the most beautiful stories ever told by man. And among the many such incredibly beautiful stories, one of the most powerful is the myth of Sisyphus.

He was the son of king Aeolus of Thessaly and Enarete, the myth tells us. As a king, he promoted navigation and commerce and did a lot of other good things. However, his weakness was power greed. And such was his greed for power and position that he would stop at nothing. Offering hospitality to visitors, he enjoyed killing them if that allowed him to improve his position in any way. And he was crafty. Lying, deceit, betrayals, all came naturally to him. He seduced his own niece, he took the throne that belonged to his brother. At one time he was cursed by Zeus because he was revealing the god’s secrets. In a fury, Zeus ordered Thanatos [god of death] to chain Sisyphus to a rock in Tartarus. Sisyphus innocently asked Death to demonstrate how the chains worked. And when Thanatos demonstrated it, he locked the god of death in chains and death was no more able to visit the world of men.

Sisyphus soon achieved the dubious fame of being the cleverest man in the world. And so proud of his cunning was Sisyphus that he believed himself not only an equal to the gods, but smarter than the gods themselves – smarter even than Zeus, the lord of Gods, himself. When Zeus kidnapped Aegina, the daughter of the river god Asopus, and kept her in hiding, Sisyphus revealed the truth to Asopus – not out of moral outrage at Zeus’ behaviour, not out of a feeling for justice but just to show he was cleverer than Zeus.

It was the anger of the gods in general and of Zeus in particular that brought Sisyphus’ curse upon him. And the curse was for all time to come. For all eternity, Sisyphus was cursed to roll up a huge boulder up a hill. And when the boulder reached the top, it will roll down by itself and then Sisyphus had to roll it up again.

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The myth of Sisyphus could be understood at several levels. It is the story of man and his life at many, many levels. For the time being, let us look at it from the standpoint of prati prasava, the ancient Indian practice of travelling back into past lifetimes.

Prati prasava literally means reverse birth. What we do in the process is travel back into our previous lifetimes through the process of meditation. Incidentally, whether we do it deliberately or not, according to the Buddha, every single one of us passes through a process of past life recollection/reliving as the process of meditation advances. Used as a technique, prati prasava is very much like past life regression as, say, practiced by Brian Weiss. Those who are interested in the process are welcome to read his Many Lives, Many Masters or better still his Through Time Into Healing, which I find the better of the two books. Through Time Into Healing also has a script attached to it in the appendices, which one could use for journeying back into past life times.

Today prati prasava or past life regression is mostly used for resolving unresolved conflicts that we carry with us from our past lifetimes and for healing. But prati prasava could also be used for remembering our past learning and sadhanas, for starting from where we left in the last times.

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I remember reading a short story some time back. The woman in the story has the history of a chain of abusive marriages. Each of her marriages has gone exactly the same way. It begins beautifully with rich romance, both she and her lover falling deeply in love with each other. They get married and soon the relationship between the two begins to change. In a short while she finds herself abused verbally, attacked physically, humiliated constantly and reduced to the status of a sexual slave. As the story ends, the woman is once again in exactly the same relationship, this time with the new young waiter who has just joined the hotel where she is hiding. The boy has a criminal record – he has killed his own father. What began as the woman in the commanding position doing sexual favours to the boy ends up by her becoming his slave.

We repeat our own unique life patterns endlessly in our life. Some of us repeat patterns of success, others of failure; some of acceptance, others of rejection; some of happiness and others of pain.

And it is not only in one lifetime that we repeat the same pattern again and again. We do that in lifetime after lifetime. There are stories that past life regression has revealed, in which two individuals continue the victim-perpetrator relationship in lifetime after lifetime, one of which I have discussed in some detail in an article called Reincarnation, Transactional Analysis and Karma elsewhere on this blog. [Please see http://innertraditions.blogspot.com/2009/05/reincarnation-transactional-analysis.html]

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Sisyphus rolls the stone up all the way to the top of the hill and then it comes crashing down. He climbs down and picking it up, begins rolling it up the hill again.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Bardo Thodal, speaks of how after death the disembodied soul becomes hungry for the same experiences as he has lived for when he was in the body and returns to the world of embodied living to begin it all, all over again.

Most of us are like Sisyphus and do precisely the same thing in lifetime after lifetime. We repeat the same patterns and do exactly the same things we have done in the past. Life after life we live like the bullock that is tied to the oil mill that walks the same circle day after day – and that circle does not take it anywhere.

Prati prasava can connect us with our learnings in past life times and with the spiritual journeys made in past existences.

In the Bhagavad Gita there is an interesting discussion between Krishna and Arjuna about this possibility. In Chapter Six of the Gita, Arjuna asks about the fate of the practitioner of yoga who falls on the way and Krishna assures him that no harm comes to him. One of the possibilities is that such a man is reborn in the home of pure and spiritual people, or of intelligent yogis and there he is united with the memories of his past lifetimes and making fast progress, reaches his goal.

What Krishna says here is that this happens on its own. But there are also ways of doing this through yogic processes. Prati prasava is one such method.

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Albert Camus, the Nobel Prize willing writer, has written an essay called The Myth of Sisyphus, in which he says that “If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious.” Camus is right, in a way. The day the bullock realizes the absurdity of its life, it will perhaps go mad. If the bullock does not realize its situation, it could only be called a blessing.

But at the same time, at least in the case of man, his unconsciousness is a tragedy too. That he is unconscious of his situation is a blessing in the sense that the day he becomes conscious of it, there is every possibility he will go mad. But it is a tragedy because his unconsciousness also prevents him from ever waking up. So long as he does not become conscious of his situation, there is no possibility that he will wake up. It is only the consciousness of his situation that will make it possible for him to wake up.

There is a beautiful story about Narada and Maya.

One day, says the story, Sage Narada was walking across a vast desert with God as his companion. Suddenly Narada asked God, “Bhagavan, tell me, what is Maya?”

God smiled but made no reply. They continued their walk.

After a while God told Narada, "The sun is hot today, and I am thirsty. Ahead you will find a village. Go there and fetch me some water."

Narada set off to carry out God’s errand. Arriving at the village, he approached the first house he saw and knocked on the door. A beautiful young woman came and opened the door. The sage looked into her eyes and he forgot all about his errand. The woman’s loveliness was intoxicating.

The woman ushered Narada into the house, telling it is hot outside. He was warmly welcomed by her family. It was as if everyone in their household had been expecting him. The sage was asked to eat with the family, and then to stay the night, which Narada accepted gladly, enjoying the family's warm hospitality. All the while his mind was toying with the young woman’s incredible beauty. He wanted to make her his own and to give himself to her.

A week went by, then two. The sage wanted to pay back for their hospitality. He began to share in the household chores.

And then one day, unable to resist the temptation any more, Narada asked for the woman's hand in marriage. The family had been expecting this and they are overjoyed.

The sage and his young wife settled down in her family's house, where she soon bore him a child, and then two more – two sons and a daughter.

Years passed. When his wife's mother and father passed away, the sage took over as head of the household. He opened a small shop in the village and it prospered. Before long he was an honoured member of the community. Giving himself up to the age-old joys and sorrows of village life, Narada lived there contentedly for many years.

Then it happened. One night during the monsoon season a violent storm broke overhead, and the river rose so high from the sudden rains it began to flood. Narada gathered his family and led them through the dark night toward higher ground. But the winds blew so violently and the rain pelted down with such force that one of his sons was washed away by the torrent.

Narada reached for the boy, but in so doing let go of his second son. A moment later a gale tore his daughter from his arms. Then his beloved wife was also washed away into the roaring darkness.

The sage wailed helplessly. But his cries were drowned by a towering wave that rose from the depths of the terrible night and washed him headlong into the river.

Everything went black. Hours passed. Slowly, painfully, Narada came to his senses, only to discover that he had been washed onto a sandbank far down the river. It was daytime now and the storm had passed. But there was no sign of his family anywhere, nor, for that matter, of any living creature.

For a long time the sage remained lying on the sand almost mad with grief. Bits of wreckage floated past him in the river. The smell of death was on the wind.

Everything had been taken from him now; everything has disappeared into the swirling waters. There was little he could do but weep.

Then, suddenly, the sage heard a voice behind him that made the blood stop in his veins. "Narada," the voice asked, "where is the water you went to fetch?" The sage turned and saw God standing at his side. The river had vanished, and once again he and God were alone in the empty desert. "Where is my water?" God asked again. "I have been waiting for you to bring it now for several minutes."

The sage threw himself at God’s feet and begged for forgiveness. "I forgot!" Narada cried again and again. “I forgot what you asked of me, God! Forgive me!”

God smiled and said, "Do you now understand the power of Maya, Narada?”

Such is the power of Maya, even great sages become slaves to her. Under her power, we forget things again and again and live the life we have lived a thousand times over.

Maya is both a blessing and a curse. But for her blessing which makes us forget our past, we will not be able to go through the same things a thousand times. But Maya is a curse because but for her power to delude us, perhaps we would have become conscious that we are living the life of the bullock yoked to the oil mill – kolhoo ka bail.

Prati prasava helps us see with our own eyes the lives we have lived in the past and its repetitive patterns.

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Great masters use unusual techniques to teach the world. Naranath Bhranthan was one such great master who lived in Kerala a long while ago. What Sisyphus was cursed to do, Naranath chose to do as a teaching device. The great master lived in a burial ground and every morning he went to the nearby hill and began rolling up a stone to the top. As soon as the stone reached the hilltop, he would let it go and standing on top, clap his hands and laugh. Most people thought him mad – hence the name Bhranthan, meaning Mad. But to those who had eyes to see, there was a great lesson in his actions. What we do in each lifetime is the mad thing he was doing every day. And what we do life after life too is nothing but repeating that madness.

But we are so busy rolling up boulders uphill, we have no time to stop and think about what we are doing. And since we have no time to stop and think, it goes on forever and ever.

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Reincarnation: The Persistence of Memory

Renuka Narayanan has a weekly column in the Hindustan Times. It is her column this week that drew my attention to this touching story. She had mentioned in her column that the story is available online and I looked it up. Renuka’s narration is a slightly edited version of the story as it is available online. Since the online version has a few more details than her narration, I am giving here the online version.

“There was a village of about 400 houses called Chaungyo, ten miles north-west of Taungdwingyi. Two young men of the village, Nga Nyo and Ba Saing, who were friends earned their living by going round villages selling betel leaves. Coming back one day from the rounds, Ba Saing went short of rice on the way. He borrowed a small measure of rice from Nga Nyo to cook his dinner. After dinner, while they made their way back to the village leisurely in the moonlit night, poor Ba Saing was bitten by a poisonous snake and met instant death. It was sometime between 1270 and 1280 B.E. when the two friends were about the ages of twenty or so.

Probably because he hung into the thought of the loan of the small measure of rice, at the time of his death, he was born a cockerel in Nga Nyo's house. Nga Nyo trained it to become a fighting cock and entered it in fighting competitions. The first three competitions were won by Nga Nyo's cock which unfortunately lost the fourth fight because its opponent happened to be older and stronger than itself. Nga Nyo expressed his disappointment and anger by holding his cock by its leg and thrashing it against the ground. Bringing the half-dead cock home, he threw it down near the water-pot where Nga Nyo's cow came and touched it with her lips (as if expressing her sympathy).

The poor cock died afterwards and took conception in the womb of the cow. When the calf had grown up considerably, it was bought for four kyats by his friends for a feast which Nga Nyo would also join. While they were butchering the calf and cutting up the meat in preparation for their feast, a couple from Taungdwingyi, a clerk and his wife, happened to arrive on the scene. Expressing her sympathy for the calf, the clerk's wife said, "If it were my calf, I wouldn't have treated it so cruelly. Even if it had died a natural death, I wouldn't have the heart to eat its flesh. I would just bury it."

Sometime afterwards, a son was born to the clerk's wife. The child remained without speech till he was seven when, one day his father told him, "Son, do utter some words and talk to us. Today is pay day. I'll buy and bring back some nice clothes for you." Keeping his promise, the father came back in the evening with some pretty garments for his son. He said, "Here, Son, these beautiful clothes are for you. Do speak to us now." The boy then uttered, "Nga Nyo's measure of rice."

The father said, "Son, just talk to us. Not only a measure, but a whole bag of rice we will pay back the loan for you." Thereupon the boy said, "If so, put the bag of rice on the cart. We will go now to settle my debt." After putting a bag of rice on the cart, they set off on their journey. The father asked the son, "Now, where to?"

The child directed his father to drive towards the north of Taungdwingyi. Eventually they came to Chaungyo village when the son said, "That's it. That's the village," and kept directing his father through the village lanes until they came to Nga Nyo's house. Upon enquiring whether it was indeed U Nyo's house, U Nyo himself confirmed it by coming out from the house. As he approached the cart, the child hailed him, "Hey Nga Nyo, do you still remember me?" The elderly man was offended to be rudely addressed as 'Nga Nyo' by a mere child, the age of his son, but became pacified when the clerk explained, saying, "Please do not be offended, U Nyo. This child is under some strange circumstances."

When they got into the house, the boy began, "So, Nga Nyo, you don't remember me? We were once together going round the villages selling betel leaves. I borrowed a small measure of rice from you. Then I was bitten by a poisonous snake and died before I could return the loan. I then became a cockerel in your house. After winning three fights for you, I lost the fourth fight because my opponent was much stronger than I was. For losing that fight, you beat me to death in anger. Half dead, you threw me down near the water pot and a cow came and kissed me. I took conception in her womb and was reborn a cow. When I became a heifer, you all killed me to eat. At that time a clerk and his wife, who are now my father and mother, came nearby and had expressed sympathy for me. After my death as a cow, I was born as a son to my present father and mother. I have now come to repay my debt of the measure of rice."
All that the child recounted were found to be true by U Nyo who wept, feeling repentant for all the ill-treatment he had meted out to his former friend.”

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To me this is an incredibly beautiful story in more ways than I can explain.

The first thing it speaks about is the persistence of memory beyond death and through lifetimes, a fact that has been found true by the experiences of countless people and is attested to by several major religions and spiritual traditions. It is an integral part of Hinduism and Buddhism. It is so integral to Indian thought and spirituality that it routinely appears throughout Indian literature. Speaking of this, Krishna in the Gita tells Arjuna: Both you and I, O Arjuna, have lived through several lifetimes. I remember them all, whereas you do not, O Scorcher of Enemies. [BG 4.5] The Mahabharata mentions who each character in it was in his previous lifetime and in a few cases, in many previous lifetimes.

Another important thing the story tells us is that memory does not depend upon the brain. It is independent of the brain. Indian philosophy and psychology mention the chitta as the seat of memory and the chitta survives death since it is not physical and only the physical part of us dies each time we die. Chitta is one of our four inner instruments [antahkarana], the other three being manas, buddhi, and ahamkara, usually translated as mind, intellect and ego-sense. Chitta has no English equivalent. The usual translation is mind, which is more correctly the translation for manas.

A single dominating thought remains in Ba Saing’s mind through his several incarnations: that he has borrowed a measure of rice and has to return it. The feeling of guilt that you have borrowed something and have to return it can be a powerful thought, depending on your value systems. The great Socrates in his dying moments asks his disciples to return something trivial that he had borrowed. While many of us take it lightly, some of us get obsessed with the thought of returning borrowed things, almost to compulsion.

Speaking of one thought remaining in your mind through several lifetimes, the Mahabharata talks of Amba dying with the thought of revenge in her mind. She is then born as a princess in Vatsa and dies again with her revenge unaccomplished. The next time she is born as the daughter of Drupada and becomes known as Shikhandi after a sex transformation. In that lifetime, as we all know, she accomplishes her goal.

Clinical psychology using regression as an approach to healing has come across several cases when a psychological experience of one lifetime is carried into another life time, or across several lifetimes. The celebrated author and clinical psychologist Brian Weiss talks of several such incidents in his works. Through regression he takes people to the lifetime that caused their problems and healing happens when they relive with awareness the incident that originally caused the problem.

Just as the case of Amba which the Mahabharata discusses in great detail, Rosemary Ellen Guiley in her Tales of Reincarnation discusses the story of two brothers who carried their thoughts and feelings across several lifetimes from the Roman times to today’s United States. The two brothers were driving chariots in Roman times when the younger brother’s chariot collides with that of the elder brother. The elder brother is thrown down from his chariot and is crushed by his own chariot wheel. What follows is a tail of vengeance that last two millennia. Here again it is the dying thought of the elder brother that forces him to torture his younger brother through lifetimes – in some lifetimes the younger brother is a wife who is tortured by the elder brother who is now his/her husband; in some others, they are a son and father and so on. [Please see my Reincarnation, Transactional Analysis and Karma for more details of the story. [http://innertraditons.blogspot.com/2009/05/reincarnation-transactional-analysis.html]

Every time he is killed, Ba Saing is reborn at the home of someone he is attached to.

His first rebirth is in his friend Nga Nyo’s house. Here he is reborn as a cock. While birth at his friend’s house could be due to his attachment, one reason for birth as a cock could be because of the connection between cocks and rice, which was the debt he owed to his friend. In the east, cocks are commonly fed rice, both raw and cooked, and paddy. Another reason could be that the jiva [psycho-spiritual being that transmigrates from body to body] often tends to take the first body available for rebirth which he finds more or less appropriate depending on his dominant thoughts and feelings of the moment. The Upanishads metaphorically speak of all life being paraded before a jiva ready for rebirth. When a form that he finds appealing at the moment appears before him, the jiva jumps up and says that is what he wants and he is then reborn as that. Like in all other decisions we take in life, our moods are very important and can influence our decisions strongly.

Nga Nyo trains the cock to become a fighting cock and enters it in competitions. When it fails after three wins, an angry Nga Nyo dashes the cock to death. Here his cow shows some sympathy by touching the dying cock with her lips and Ba Saing now takes birth as a calf of that cow. He is till in the household of his friend Nga Nyo to whom he owes a debt. The cow’s feelings for the dying cock have obviously touched it and it is as her child that he is born this time.

This time Nga Nyo sells the calf to four of his friends. They butcher it for a feast that Nga Nyo himself was to join.

While the friends and Nyo do not know it, it is his friend’s body they are feasting on. This reminded me of folktales from across the world, in which a child is killed and the murderer – usually the wicked stepmother – feeds it to the child’s own father and siblings. Ashliman lists several such stories in his collection of folktales, folklore, fairytales and mythology, many under type 720 [Mother Killed Me, Father Ate Me type of tales].

While they were butchering the calf, a clerk and his wife happen to pass by. The clerk’s wife laments the calf’s fate, saying "If it were my calf, I wouldn't have treated it so cruelly. Even if it had died a natural death, I wouldn't have the heart to eat its flesh. I would just bury it." The calf is now reborn as her child.

Again, a touch of sympathy in a cruel world and the jiva is drawn to it.

The child decides to remain silent. He does not talk.

It is a conscious decision on his part. Perhaps the experiences of the previous two lifetimes have shocked him into silence. Sensitive people often withdraw into silence in the presence of heartlessness, whether the heartlessness is knowing or unknowing. Lots of children do that, and so do several adults. Women frequently become silent when they are treated brutally by their husbands, or in a joint family, by the in-laws. School children do that when they are treated heartlessly by their teachers. The silence is usually partial, but it can also be total. Medical science reports cases where children turn autistic because of traumatic incidents.

Indian tradition talks of child who remained silent for a different reason. This is the great Hastamalaka, who eventually becomes a disciple of Acharya Shankara. But of course, he was not shocked into silence; it was his sensitivity that made him silent. That, and the feeling that mundane communication is so futile. A sensitive and awakened mind often finds much of what goes on around him so utterly meaninglessness that he becomes silent.

Hastamalaka has the rare honour of being the only disciple in the world on whose work his guru wrote a commentary.

Eventually, at the age of seven when Ba Saing speaks, it is to talk of his debt to his friend from lifetimes back. The father takes him to Nga Nyo, the child showing the way to his village, which he remembers. When he sees Nga Nyo, he immediately recognizes him and addresses him familiarly, as though he is meeting an old friend after a long time. Well, he is, really.

Nga Nyo weeps repenting the cruelty he had meted out to his former friend. He had trained him to be fighting cock and when he lost a battle, dashed him to death in a fury. The second time he had sold him to his friends, to be butchered and eaten, and he himself had joined the feast.

One day before I read this Burmese story, my wife told me about something that happened to someone who had got married two weeks ago. She had married a person whose wife had died of blood cancer a while ago. After a wedding party in the husband’s hometown, the husband and the new wife went to bed late at night – their nuptial night. And the moment they were together in their bedroom, in flew a little bird – past midnight, when birds do not fly about. The bird began flying about the room restlessly, now landing here, now landing there. The fan was on in the room and they were afraid that the bird might get hit by its blades. They tried to drive the bird out through the open window and then what they feared happened. The bird flew onto the fan and was hit by the blade. As it lay in a swoon, they picked it up and gave it some water. It was soon revived. They took it to the courtyard so that it can fly away, but it wouldn’t go. Instead, it flew back into the room again through the window and started flying about once again. Eventually they managed to catch it again and then took it in the middle of the night itself to a far off place in their car and let it fly off.

All this while, there was one single thought in the minds of both the husband and the new wife. They instinctively felt they knew who the little bird was.

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How long does it normally take for a dead person to be reborn again? It all depends on the strength and nature of your vasanas, the psychological scripts you have written into your depths, and several other external factors. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the classic that is about a thousand years old, is perhaps the most authentic text we have on this subject. The book, one of my favourites, talks about the transformations human consciousness undergoes each day from the moment of death. According to the Book of the Dead, most people are reborn within forty-eight days of their death.

In modern times, several people have studied the phenomenon of rebirth scientifically. The most respected of them is Dr Brian Weiss, the clinical psychologist referred to earlier, whose Through Time into Healing I found fascinating. His most famous book, though, is Many Lives, Many Masters. I am sorry to say I couldn’t agree with some parts of the book.

One important lesson the story of Ba Saing teaches us is not to be cruel to animals around us. Who knows who they are?

There are far too many more things that I would like to write about Ba Saing’s story. But that would make this article far too long. Maybe, some other time. For the time being, let me end this with a folktale called The Rose Tree, from Devonshire, England. The story is taken from William Henderson’s Folklore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders.

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There was upon a time a good man who had two children: a girl by a first wife, and a boy by the second. The girl was as white as milk, and her lips were like cherries. Her hair was like golden silk, and it hung to the ground. Her brother loved her dearly, but her wicked stepmother hated her.

"Child," said the stepmother one day, "go to the grocer's shop and buy me a pound of candles."

She gave her the money, and the little girl went, bought the candles, and started on her return. There was a stile to cross. She put down the candles while she got over the stile. Up came a dog and ran off with the candles.

She went back to the grocer's, and she got a second bunch. She came to the stile, set down the candles, and proceeded to climb over. Up came the dog again and ran off with the candles.

She went again to the grocer's, and she got a third bunch, and just the same event happened. Then she came to her stepmother crying, for she had spent all the money and had lost three bunches of candles.

The stepmother was angry, but she pretended not to mind the loss. She said to the child, "Come, lay your head on my lap that I may comb your hair."

So the little one laid her head in the woman's lap, who proceeded to comb the yellow silken hair. And when she combed, the hair fell over her knees and rolled right down to the ground.

Then the stepmother hated her more for the beauty of her hair, so she said to her, "I cannot part your hair on my knee. Fetch a billet of wood."

So she fetched it.

Then said the stepmother, "I cannot part your hair with a comb. Fetch me an ax."
So she fetched it.

"Now," said the wicked woman, "lay your head down on the billet while I part your hair."

Well! She laid down her little golden head without fear; and whist! down came the ax, and it was off. So the mother wiped the ax and laughed.

Then she took the heart and liver of the little girl, and she stewed them and brought them into the house for supper. The husband tasted them and shook his head. He said they tasted very strangely. She gave some to the little boy, but he would not eat. She tried to force him, but he refused, and ran out into the garden, and took up his little sister, and put her in a box, and buried the box under a rose tree; and every day he went to the tree and wept, till his tears ran down on the box.

One day the rose tree flowered. It was spring, and there among the flowers was a white bird; and it sang, and sang, and sang like an angel out of heaven. Away it flew, and it went to a cobbler's shop, and perched itself on a tree hard by; and thus it sang:

My wicked mother slew me,
My dear father ate me,
My little brother whom I love
Sits below, and I sing above
Stick, stock, stone dead.

"Sing again that beautiful song," asked the shoemaker.

"If you will first give me those little red shoes you are making."

The cobbler gave the shoes, and the bird sang the song, then flew to a tree in front of a watchmaker's and sang:

My wicked mother slew me,
My dear father ate me,
My little brother whom I love
Sits below, and I sing above
Stick, stock, stone dead.

"Oh, the beautiful song! Sing it again, sweet bird," asked the watchmaker.

"If you will give me first that gold watch and chain in your hand."

The jeweler gave the watch and chain. The bird took it in one foot, the shoes in the other, and flew away, after having repeated the song, to where three millers were picking a millstone. The bird perched on a tree and sang:

My wicked mother slew me,
My dear father ate me,
My little brother whom I love
Sits below, and I sing above
Stick!

Then one of the men put down his tool and looked up from his work,

Stock!

Then the second miller's man laid aside his tool and looked up,

Stone!

Then the third miller's man laid down his tool and looked up,

Dead!

Then all three cried out with one voice, "Oh, what a beautiful song! Sing it sweet bird, again."

"If you will put the millstone round my neck," said the bird.

The men complied with the bird's request, and away to the tree it flew with the millstone round his neck, the red shoes in the grasp of one foot, and the gold watch and chain in the grasp of the other. He sang the song and then flew home.
It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house, and the stepmother said, "It thunders."

Then the little boy ran out to see the thunder, and down dropped the red shoes at his feet.

It rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house once more, and the stepmother said again, "It thunders."

Then the father ran out, and down fell the chain about his neck.
In ran father and son, laughing and saying, "See, the thunder has brought us these fine things!"

Then the bird rattled the millstone against the eaves of the house a third time, and the stepmother said, "It thunders again. Perhaps the thunder has brought something for me," and she ran out. But the moment she stepped outside the door, down fell the millstone on her head. And so she died.

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