The sister who walked her brother home (the Bhai Dooj katha of the north)
A brother who has never seen his married sister crosses a forest to reach her on Bhai Dooj, promising the snake, the tiger and the hills that they may take him on the way back. His sister walks him home, buying off each danger in turn, and when travelling folk tell her his death still waits she curses him until his wedding and takes every rite on herself first, so that the snake in the headdress and the spirits at the fire fall on her and not on him. A Hindi katha tells of seven brothers killed by a snake at their weddings and the sister who broke the curse.
Who is in it
Yamathe lord of the day, whose messengers the sister turns away
North India · North IndiaFolkHindi belt, popular telling🪔 Bhai Dooj (Yama Dwitiya)
An elder sister is married away and her younger brother grows up without her because a dangerous forest lies between the villages. He sets out anyway; snakes and mountains threaten him and he asks them to let him reach his sister once and to eat him on his return, and they let him pass. His sister welcomes him, and when he leaves and says he will die she walks back with him with offerings: milk satisfies the snake, meat the tiger, metals and flowers the mountains. While she fetches water from a camp of travelling people (gypsies in the source) they tell her he is still not safe: she must curse and abuse him until he is married and insist every wedding rite be done for her first. The village is shocked by her abuse and wants her gone. At the wedding she demands the groom's headdress first and finds a snake in it instead of a string. During the pheras he faints as spirits come for him; she wakes, comes cursing with blazing eyes and the spirits flee. She explains the prediction, the brother prays every brother may have such a sister, and the festival is established.
The seven brothers and the snake (Hindi vrat katha)
North India · Uttar Pradesh and the Hindi beltFolkHindi vrat katha🪔 Bhai Dooj (Yama Dwitiya)
An old widow has seven sons and a married daughter; at each son's wedding a snake bites the groom dead during the pheras, six die, and the mother goes blind weeping. On Bhai Dooj the seventh goes to his sister for the tilak. His death waits on the road as a snake; he asks for time and lets it ride in his bag. A jealous neighbour has told the sister to plaster the kitchen with milk and cook rice in ghee, so the meal goes wrong and the brother sets it right. He sleeps; his nephews find a diamond necklace in the bag. Next day she packs laddus; her children find snake bones in the grinding stone, and she runs after him and insists on going with him. Fetching water where kites circle, she sees six stones planted and a seventh loose, and an old woman tells her they stand for her brothers and tells her the remedy. She returns with loose hair like a madwoman, cursing him with burning, beating and death, through to the wedding: she takes the sehra and shakes a baby snake from its plume, rides the horse in his place, passes the falling door first and stops it with a brick in her veil, stands under the falling peepal and stops it with a leaf. At the pheras the bride traps the snake under a pot; its mate, to free it, revives the groom and then, for one reason after another, all six dead brothers. The mother's sight returns; the sister goes home with only what her mother puts in her hands.
What is different here:
Seven brothers and a family curse instead of one brother and a forest; the snake is named as the brother's death and rides in his bag; the cursing is advised by an old woman at six stones; the bride, not the sister, ends the danger by trapping the snake; the dead brothers return.