Lal Behari Day

Folk-Tales of Bengal Lal Behari Day

There was a king who had two queens, Duo and Suo.1 Both of them were childless. One day a Faquir (mendicant) came to the palace-gate to ask for alms. The Suo queen went to the door with a handful of rice. The mendicant asked whether she had any children. On being answered in the negative, the holy mendicant refused to take alms, as the hands of a woman unblessed with the child are regarded as ceremonially unclean. He offered her a drug for removing her barrenness, and she expressed her willingness to receive it, he gave it to her with the following directions: -"Take this nostrum, swallow it with the juice of the pomegranate flower; if you do this, you will have a son in due time