TALES OF KING VIKRAM AND BETAAL THE VAMPIREOnce 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 inthe storage. On hearing of the king’s curiosity, the treasurer was surprised tosee the storage full of emeralds and pearls and the fruit
had disintegrated. Hereported this to the king. The king questioned the beggar the next day aboutthis. On hearing this, the beggar requested the help from the king for a magicspell he was going
to perform. The king was asked to meet him at nightfall ofthe 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 nightlycreatures. The beggar asked the king to go further deep into the woods andbring 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 itdown 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 24times. 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 thatthe beggar would
ask him to rest on a piece of wood when he would besacrificed. In that situation the vampire asked the king to let the beggar showthe 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 storieswhichever 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 notanswer. 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 wifeand daughter to hide behind a bush while he fought the robbers but died a tragicdeath. The
queen and the daughter wept for their king.In the meantime, a peasent and his son came to the forest on horses. They sawthe foorprints of the ladies, and were impressed. The son decided to
marry thelady with the smaller feet while the father decided to marry the lady with thebigger feet. Upon a distance they saw the queen and the daughter. The peasenttalked smoothly with the
ladies and consoled them and heard their story afterconvincing them that they were not robbers. The peasant and the son thenbrought the two ladies home and told them of the plan of marriage.
Theyconsented. But alas, the bigger feet belonged to the daugher and the smallerfeet belonged to the mother. So the son married the mother and the fathermarried the daughter.Betaal then asks
this question: How are the children born on both the sidesrelated to one another?Vikram was speechless as he could not get any satisfactory answer. So theBetaal could not escape this time. The
stories of TALES OF KING VIKRAM AND BETAAL THE VAMPIRE is anicon of Indian storey telling.
