From Gondi Folklore
In Gulbansagarh lived Mohasingh Raja and his two wives. The younger wife had one son and one daughter. This was the kingdom of the Baiga and one day they went to the Raja and asked him to give them jungle where they could cut bewar. The Raja said, “Go to such and such corner of the jungle and cut.” They made their clearing and sowed sugarcane, cucumbers, beans, roots, maize and wild rice. When the crop was ready there came Koha Dano and devoured the crop. The Baiga tried to kill him but failed and they went to the Raja for help. The Raja, riding on the mare Champi, took his soldiers armed with guns. He and his men surround the clearing and said, “I will kill this Dano wherever he tries to escape.” But the Dano put his feet on the Raja’s shoulders, jumped over his head and escaped. The men shouted, “The Raja is killed,” but he was angry and said, “No, what you should say is, “The Raja has killed.” Then he said, “You all go home, but I am going to follow this Dano and I will not return until I have killed him.”
The Dano hid under a stone. The Raja followed his footsteps and tried to pull him out from under the stone but without success. He put his sword and gun at the entrance to the cave, tied Champi his mare to a tree and lay down to sleep. Presently the Dano came out and asked the sword, “Who are you and what are you going?” “I am a sword and when the Raja wakes up, he will take me in his hand and cut you to pieces.” Then the Dano said to the spear, “Who are you and what do you want?” The spear replied, “I am a spear and when the Raja wakes up he will take me in his hand and cut you into pieces.” When he heard this the Dano went to the Raja and killed him. He took out both his eyes, dressed himself in the Raja’s clothes, picked up the sword and spear and rode back on the mare to the city. The people thought it was their own Raja who had come victorious and welcomed him home.
That night the Dano slept with the Raja’s wife, but the children of the younger wife lived in the upper palace and the Dano did not see them. After a time he grew hungry for human flesh and began to eat his own subjects and many left the kingdom in fear.
The Raja’s son thought that he must go and find out from Champi the mare what had really happened, for he could not believe that the Dano was really his father. When the boy came to the stable the mare wept and told him what had really happened. She said, “The Dano will kill everybody. Come with you sister, bringing food to last twelve years, and I and the elephant will take you away to safety.” They brought food and clothes and rode on the mare and the elephant away to Nagar Pahar. After a time Champi said, “I am going to die. Bury my head separately and from it there will come a palace. Bury my eyes and from them will grow aonra and jamun trees. Put my blood in a pot and it will turn into a lake. Tie my entrails round the pot and there will be a garden around the lake. My liver will become a hibiscus flower which you can offer to the gods. My kidneys will turn into sunflowers.” The boy did what the mare told him and everything happened as she had said. Then the elephant prepared to die and told the boy to bury its head in one place and it turned into a temple and its testes in another and from them there grew a bel tree.
The brother and sister stayed on in the palace and the boy used to go hunting daily to search for food. One day he got nothing but he found a monkey which became his friend and used to bring animals for him to eat. After a time, the monkey went to Lohaharh and had a great axe made. He told the boy that he and his sister should come with him back to their kingdom. When they reached the city they found it deserted by everyone, for the Dano had eaten all the people. The Dano had to graze his own cows and make his own curds and ghee. The monkey climbed on to the roof of the palace and shouted abuse at the Dano, who became very angry and so swelled with rage that his head almost touched the clouds. The monkey made itself very small and the Dano also made himself small in order to catch it. Then suddenly the monkey made itself big and picked up the axe and killed him.
Then the boy and the girl with the monkey cleared the city and called the inhabitants back again and ruled over it in great content. They brought the seeds of the hibiscus and the sunflower in the jungle and planted them in the place, and made a grove of jamun and aonra trees in memory of Champi the mare and the faithful elephant.
Source:
Chapter 6, Myths of Middle India, Verrier Elwin, 1949
Kotharian Lightning 