The water-goddesses were pleased, and a great
mass of water suddenly rushed into the tank, and it was filled right
up to the brink. After a time the daughter-in-law came back from her
father's house and brought her brother with her. They asked where her
son was, but they could get no information. Whenever they asked the
king, he did nothing but say how the water had come into the tank,
and what a beautiful tank it was, and how happy it would make all
the villagers. At last the daughter-in-law guessed what had happened,
and when the seventh day of the bright half of the month of Shravan,
or August, came round, she and her brother went to the edge of the
tank and began to worship the water-goddesses. She took a cucumber
leaf, and on it she placed some curds and rice. Next she mixed
with them some butter and a farthing's worth of betel-nut. Then she
told her brother to pray, "O Goddess, Mother of All, if any one of
our family is drowned in the tank please give him back to us." He
did so and then threw the offering into the lake.
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