Lal Behari Dey

Folk-Tales of Bengal Lal Behari Dey

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 child are regarded as ceremonially unclean.

He offered her a drug for removing her barrenness, and she expressing 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