Balna’s black-dog transformation

Overview

Balna is the youngest of seven royal sisters in Anna Liberata de Souza’s Punchkin tale. After surviving a stepmother’s persecution, she marries the youngest of seven princes and bears a son. Her husband disappears while hunting, followed by his six brothers. A stranger then enters the women’s palace pretending to be a holy beggar. The narrator identifies him as the enchanter Punchkin. When Balna refuses his proposal and insists on staying to raise her child, he changes her into a small black dog and leads her away. This is a forced transformation of an identified human woman, not a canine people or an innate animal identity.

The servants notice the dog, but accept Punchkin’s claim that a princess gave it to him. Balna cannot escape or communicate her plight to her sisters. The dog form explains how the abduction succeeds; it is not her permanent condition. In the later scenes her son finds her imprisoned in a tower as a woman, although the text does not separately narrate the reversal of the dog transformation. She says that she has resisted the enchanter’s marriage demand for twelve years. Her son, now fourteen, reaches her disguised as a gardener’s daughter and reveals himself through the ring she gave him as a baby.

Balna helps bring about the escape by pretending that she may finally accept Punchkin, then asking whether he can suffer or die. He discloses the distant parrot on which his life depends. She relays the secret to her son while fearing that his rescue attempt will kill him. After the boy secures the bird, compels the restoration of the enchanted prisoners and kills Punchkin, Balna is released from the tower and returns with her son, husband and brothers-in-law. The story preserves both her resistance and her part in obtaining the crucial information; it does not identify her as the magician’s wife.

Origins & earliest records

Told by Anna Liberata de Souza and collected in English by Mary Frere; introduction and notes by Bartle Frere.

Records & interpretation

Complete I27–43, footnotes25–36 and short related endnote read; full introductory provenance checked.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Old Deccan Days; or, Hindoo Fairy Legends Current in Southern India

   Anna Liberata de Souza, narrator; Mary Frere, collector; Bartle Frere, introduction and notes · 1870

   I, Punchkin, pp.27–43; footnotes25–36 and related endnote338; Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. Full narrative and notes read.

Family & connections

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Primary records and illustrations

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical collected oral narrative in EnglishOld Deccan Days — I, Punchkin, pp.27–43; footnotes25–36 and related endnote338Research access: 2026-10-06

Image credits

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