Publisher's Synopsis
TALES OF KING VIKRAM AND BETAAL THE VAMPIRE Once upon a time there was a king named Vikramaaditya who ruled Pratisthana on the river Godavari. He was a mighty and glorious king. Everyday when he used to hold public court, a beggar used to come along and present a fruit to the king and this went on for a couple of years when curiosity got the better of the king. The king used to pass on the fruit to his treasurer who used to throw them all in the storage. On hearing of the king's curiosity, the treasurer was surprised to see the storage full of emeralds and pearls and the fruit had disintegrated. He reported this to the king. The king questioned the beggar the next day about this. On hearing this, the beggar requested the help from the king for a magic spell he was going to perform. The king was asked to meet him at nightfall of the fourteenth night of the dark moon near the cremation ground. The king did as told and found the beggar there. The beggar was drawing a magic circle and all around were the howling noises of vampires, ghosts and other nightly creatures. The beggar asked the king to go further deep into the woods and bring the corpse, which was haging upside down on a tree. The king found the corpse for sure, but as he started lifting it and taking it down he realised that it was possessed by a vampire. Everytime the king talked the vampire jumped back the tree. In the end, the king jumped up sliently and brought the corpse down. The vampire then started telling him a story. In the end of the story, he asked a puzzle to the king related to story. As soon as the king finished his answer, he fled back to the top of the tree. This happened 24 times. But for the 25th time, the question was so tough that the king could not answer. These 25 stories are very famous in Indian literature, known as Vikram- Betaal tales. On the end of the 25th tale, the vampire cautioned the king that the beggar would ask him to rest on a piece of wood when he would be sacrificed. In that situation the vampire asked the king to let the beggar show the way and asked the king to get rid of the evil beggar. So did the king. And the vampire granted the king for a boon. The king requested that the stories whichever were told to him, be told time and again in history and wherever these stories are told vampires would not dare. Hence the famous Vikram-Betaal stories. As a sample, here we present the last of the stories, which the king could not answer. Betaal said, "Once there was a king in the South who had lot of relatives. The relatives were always hungry after the throne. So once they usurped the throne, and the king had to flee the kingdom with his wife and daughter. They travelled through dense forests. In one area which was occupied by barbarians, he adivsed his wife and daughter to hide behind a bush while he fought the robbers but died a tragic death. The queen and the daughter wept for their king. In the meantime, a peasent and his son came to the forest on horses. They saw the foorprints of the ladies, and were impressed. The son decided to marry the lady with the smaller feet while the father decided to marry the lady with the bigger feet. Upon a distance they saw the queen and the daughter. The peasent talked smoothly with the ladies and consoled them and heard their story after convincing them that they were not robbers. The peasant and the son then brought the two ladies home and told them of the plan of marriage. They consented. But alas, the bigger feet belonged to the daugher and the smaller feet belonged to the mother. So the son married the mother and the father married the daughter. Betaal then asks this question: How are the children born on both the sides related to one another? Vikram was speechless as he could not get any satisfactory answer. So the Betaal could not escape this time. The stories of TALES OF KING VIKRAM AND BETAAL THE VAMPIRE is an icon of Indian storey telling.
