When Dutugemunu was a lad, he was banished from his father's court for disobedience and he passed his youth among the peasantry of Kotmale till his father's death made him the ruler of Ruhuna.
Dutugemunu had a band of ten favourite warriors, all of whom have independent legends attached to their names; along with them, riding on his favourite elephant Sedol, he performed wonders in 28 pitched battles.
He died at an advanced age, disappointed in his only son Sali, who gave up the throne for a low caste beauty. The peasantry still awaits the re-birth of Dutugemunu as the chief disciple of the future Maitri Buddha.
(3) A folk tale is a story told mainly for amusement, deals with ideas and episodes of primitive life and includes elfin tales, beast tales, noodle tales, cumulative tales and apologues.
Elfin tales deal with the magical powers and the cannibalistic nature of the Râkshas.
A Gamarala's wife, while expecting a baby, weaves a mat bag to collect the kekira melons when the season is on. The Gamarâla goes out every day, enjoys the kekira himself without informing his wife that the melons are ripe. The wife discovers that the kekira is ripe from a seed on the Gamarala's beard. Both go out to collect the kekira melons and fill the mat bag, when the wife gives birth to a girl. They decide to carry the bag of kekira home and throw the child into the woods as it is a girl. A male and female crane see this and carry the child to a cave. The cranes get a parrot, a dog and a cat to be companions of the girl who all grow up together and the girl is called 'sister' by the pets. The cranes leave the girl to dive for some pearls to adorn her and before departing advise her not to leave the cave as there is a cannibalistic Rakshi in the woods; they also ask her to manure the plantain tree with ash, to water the murunga tree and to feed her pets especially the cat. The cat gets a less allowance of food than usual and in anger puts out the fire by urinating on it. The girl goes out to fetch fire and comes to the Rakshi's cave and meets her daughter, who tries to keep the girl till her mother comes by promising to give her fire, if she would bring water from the well, break firewood and pound two pots of amu seed. The girl does all this work before the Rakshi arrives and the daughter gives her live coals in a cocoanut shell with a hole in it, so that the ashes dropped all along her way. On the Rakshi's return she is told of the girls' departure and she follows up the ash track and reaches the cave. The Rakshi sings out to the girl that the crane father and crane mother have come with the pearls and to open the door. The dog and the cat warn her from the outside and the Rakshi kills them and goes away leaving her thumb nails fixed to the lintel and her toe nails to the threshold. The cranes return and on the parrot's advice the girl opens the door and comes out but gets fixed by the nails and swoons away. The cranes think she is dead, but on removal of the nails the girl recovers. They dress up the girl beautifully, cover her with a scab covered cloth, tell her that she is too grown up to live with them and bid her farewell. The girl travels through the woods, becomes tired and meets the Rakshi; she asks the Rakshi to eat her up but the Rakshi contemptuously passes her by saying "I do not want to eat a scab covered girl; I am going to eat a beautiful princess." The girl arrives at a king's palace and is employed as a help mate to the cook. She used to remove her scab covered cloth only when she went out to bathe, and a man on a kitul tree tapping for toddy saw her beauty and informed the king who forced her with threats to remove her scab covering and married her.