Muchie-Lal is an Indian folktale published by author Mary Frere, who collected it from her maid Anna Liberata de Souza. It tells the story of a girl that marries a prince in fish form and disenchants him with supernatural aid. It is related to the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom, in that a human maiden marries a man cursed into animal form and breaks his curse. Variants are collected in Southern India and from the Dravidian languages, with the male protagonist taking many animal shapes, like that of a fish, a crab or a tiger.
Source Mary Frere collected the tale from her Indian maid Anna Liberata de Souza, and published it originally in 1868. Stith Thompson and Jonas Balys's Oral Tales of India sourced the tale from Mysore.
Publications The tale was republished in English as Little Ruby Fish (Murchie-Lal), and The Fish Prince (where the heroine is named Balna). The tale was also translated into German as Muchie Lal and to Russian with the title "Царевич-рыба" ("Prince-Fish").
Summary A Rajah and a Ranee suffer for not having children, and pray to be given a son, to no avail. One day, fishes are brought to the kitchen to be cooked, and one of the maidservants notices there is a single living among them. She places the little animal in a basin, which the Ranee sights one day and decides to adopt it as her pet, calling it "Muchie-Rajah" ('Fish-Prince'). As the fish grows up, the queen replaces his basin for increasingly larger recipients, until the fish is large enough to occupy a tank. The story then explains the fish was no ordinary animal, but a prince transformed into a fish due to the gods' anger. Some time later, the fish begins to talk and asks the Ranee to search for a wife for him, since he is lonely. The Ranee then sends messengers to search for a maiden to be the fish's wife, the Muchie-Ranee, but many families refuse to give up their daughters to the fish prince for feart of it devouing them. The Ranee then offers a lac of gold mohurs as compensation for the daughter of any family to come marry the fish. People still refuse to accept the Ranee's proposal, even the beggars. Eventually, the messengers reach a village where a widowed Fakeer lives with his biological daughter, a second wife and his stepdaughter. The Fakeer's second wife hates the man's daughter and wishes to get rid of her for fear of overshadowing her own daughter, so, when the Fakeer is out one day and the messengers inform of the Ranee's search, the woman accepts the lac and gives her stepdaughter as wife to the fish, believing the animal will devour her. The woman orders her stepdaughter, the Fakeer's daughter, to wash her saree in the river and prepare to go with the messenger and marry the fish prince. The girl cries for her fate near he river, and a seven-headed cobra appears to her. The girl confides in the cobra her problems, and the reptile advises her to take three pebbles with her, for her to cast whenever the fish comes up he surface to stop him from eating her. With the cobra's advice, the girl goes to the palace and is moved out to a room near the fish prince's tank. The fish prince emerges for air and the girl throws a pebble at him: the first two times, the fish sink to the bottom of the tank; the third pebble reverts him to human form. The now human fish prince explains the girl released him from the spell, then asks if she wants to become the Muchie-Ranee. The next morning, people are surprised to see the fish has not devoured the girl; instead, there are a couple, the prince and the Fakeer's daughter. The monarchs marries their son to the girl, and they live in happiness for a while. However, the Fakeer's second wife learns of her stepdaughter's successful match and pretends to be happy for her. His stepdaughter, who has become Ranee, asks her husband to return home and visit has family. The stepmother seizes the opportunity to feign goodwill and instructs her own daughter to deal with her stepsister and become the Ranee in her place: the girl takes the Ranee to the riverbank, trades jewels with her and shoves her down the water to drown. As the stepsister returns home, the Ranee is saved by the Seven-Headed Cobra and taken to safety in his lair, where the Cobra lives with his cobra family. The Fakeer's wife takes her daughter to Muchie-Rajah to pass her as the true Ranee, but he notices something strange about her for the first two days. On the third day, he pulls the jewels from the false wife, his stepsister-in-law, and banishes her, while he ordes the Fakeer's wife to be captured, but she evades. As for the true Muchie-Ranee, down in the Cobra's hole, she gives birth to a son she calls Muchie-Lal, after his father. When the boy is three years old, a bangle-seller passes by the hole and the Muchie-Ranee buys some from the seller for Muchie-Lal. However, the boy breaks the bangles during his playtime, so his mother has to buy new ones to replace it, making the bangle-seller very rich. As time passes, the Muchie-Ranee begins to miss her husband and asks the Seven-Headed Cobra if she can leave and rejoin with her husband, but the Cobra insists she stays with them for her own protection. As for Muchie-Rajah, he has spent quite some time in search of his wife, but has no clue about her whereabouts. One day, he meets the bangle-seller, who tells him about the people who live in the Cobra's hole by the riverbank. Curious, the prince asks the bangle-seller about the people (a mother and her son, Muchie-Lal), then requests to be taken there. After resting for a whole day, the prince and the bangle-seller arrive at the Cobra's hole and find a biy playing with the young cobras. A voice comes from the hole, calling for Muchie-Lal, and prince Muchie-Rajah recognizes it is his wife's voice. The prince calls into the well for his wife, and she tells him about the ruse her stepfamily played on him and their attempt on her life. Muchie-Rajah says he has come to bring her home, and Muchie-Ranee informs the Cobras about it. The Seven-Headed Cobra allows Muchie-Ranee to return home with her husband and son, but the cobra will miss them, and gives the family as a parting gift costly gifts.
Analysis
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