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Updated: May 15, 2025
So just as he had told the Queen Patmadhavrani, he told Queen Chimadevrani all the rites which he had seen the serpent-maidens from Patala and the wood-nymphs perform. Everything went on just the same for a whole year. But the next year on the 8th of Ashwin a very strange thing happened. The goddess Mahalaxmi disguised herself as an old beggar-woman and came to Atpat.
"No, O King," said the boy, "he was killed by the arts of Mahalaxmi." "Where did you meet her?" asked the king. The boy said, "I stayed when the other villagers returned home, and during the night there came the serpent-maidens from Patâla and the wood-nymphs. They taught me how to worship Mahalaxmi.
The Brahman woman at once climbed down the bel tree and called out in answer, "Yes, I am here," The serpent-maidens from Pâtala and the wood-nymphs, greatly surprised, asked her who she was, and she told them all her story. Then the serpent-maidens of Pâtala and the wood-nymphs ordered their train of demon Asuras to go and search for the seven sons of the Brahman woman.
The Brahman woman began to cry, until at last the hobgoblin's wife had pity on her and said, "Do not be afraid; walk a little way until you come to an altar to the god Shiva, Close by is a bel tree; climb into it and hide among the branches. To-night the serpent-maidens from Patâla and the wood-nymphs, together with a train of seven demon Asuras, will come and worship at the altar.
And then she sat by herself and prayed to the god Shiva. The following Monday she once more ran out of the palace and out of the town and into the woods as fast as her fat little legs would carry her. There she met again the serpent-maidens of Patâla and the bevy of wood-nymphs and went with them to the temple of Shiva in the distant heart of the forest.
They went deeper and deeper into the forest until at last they came to a temple of the god Shiva. There the serpent-maidens and the wood-nymphs offered to the god rice, betel-nut, incense, flowers, and the leaves of the bel tree. The ugly little daughter-in-law did just as they did.
And he told her all that he had seen the serpent-maidens of Patâla do, and he also told her on the eighth day of the month of Ashwin to tie on her wrist a thread with sixteen strands in it, and to wear it continually for the rest of the month.
"Whatever you lose you will find," said the serpent-maidens from Patala; "and whatever you want you will get." The boy resolved that he too would worship Mahalaxmi. And he joined the serpent-maidens from Patâla and the wood-nymphs, and all night long they blew on earthen pots to do the goddess honour; and the woods echoed and re-echoed with the deep-booming noise which they made.
The first time the serpent-maidens and the wood-nymphs had given her the incense and the flowers, the rice and the betel-nut, and the leaves of the bel tree, with which to perform her worship. But they had told her that the next time she must bring them herself.
Now it so happened that that very day a band of serpent-maidens had come up from Patala. After wandering through the forest and bathing in the running streams, they had joined a bevy of wood-nymphs and were coming in her direction. At first she was too terrified to say a single word. But at last she asked, "Ladies, ladies, where are you going?"
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