A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.
Overview
A widow entrusts two sons to a teacher, agreeing that he may keep one after their education. The younger learns the arts, while his elder brother is set to tend cattle. Discovering the teacher’s plan to retain him through a false account of their abilities, the younger takes bird form and secretly warns his mother. She chooses him despite his deliberately shabby appearance. At home he supports them through transformations into a vegetable garden, a fighting cock and a horse, telling her to retain the cord when selling his forms.
The teacher buys the horse and insists on taking its cord, then rides it cruelly. The pupil escapes by becoming a frog in a pool, and subsequently a golden ring concealed beside the bathing place of a princess. She wears it home. At night he becomes human, eats part of her meal and returns to her finger. When she stays awake and catches him, he explains his predicament. He then becomes her necklace, anticipating the teacher’s demand for it as payment for a magical performance.
The princess breaks and scatters the necklace as instructed, protecting one grain beneath her foot while the teacher, now a cock, eats the others. When she lifts her foot, the protected grain becomes a jackal and devours the cock. The pupil marries the princess, receives the kingship and brings his mother and elder brother to live with him. This entry concerns his directly narrated transformations, not a separate species of magical pupils.
Parker attributes the main account to an immigrant from Malayalam-speaking southern India, written in Sinhalese and partly related in that language. His Ūva variants must be distinguished: in The Teacher and the Bull the teacher kills the pupil’s bull form as a leopard, whereas The Brāhmaṇa and the Scholar ends with a jackal emerging after the princess breaks enchanted seeds and carrying off the teacher’s cock form. That second variant does not explicitly say the jackal is the pupil. Neither ending replaces the main witness’s successful escape and royal marriage.
Origins & earliest records
Historical tale collected by H. Parker
Records & interpretation
Complete main narrative, variants, comparisons and footnotes read.
Selected bibliography
Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.
- 01
Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III
No.266, The Teacher and his Pupil, main pp.400–405; two Ūva variants pp.405–408; comparisons through p.410; two footnotes.
Family & connections
A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.
Primary records and illustrations
H. Parker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, Volume III (1914)
III. No.266, The Teacher and his Pupil, main pp.400–405; two Ūva variants pp.405–408; comparisons through p.410; two footnotes.
Complete parker3-s266.txt read and retained. Main witness and comparative material kept distinct; no invented taxonomy or imported ending.
References
Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.
- Historical translated folktaleParker, Volume III (1914), No.266, The Teacher and his Pupil, main pp.400–405; two Ūva variants pp.405–408; comparisons through p.410; two footnotes.Research access: 2026-10-05
Image credits
A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.