Sukhu and Dukhu: The Bengali Folk Tale Retold for Bedtime
Quick answer: Sukhu and Dukhu retold for bedtime: the wind steals a girl's cotton, she helps a cow, a tree and a horse on the road, and the Moon's mother rewards her. A tale from Bengal.
A weaver dies, and his kind daughter and her mother are turned out of the house. A gust of wind takes the girl's cotton, and she follows it to the house of the Moon's mother. This is one of the best-loved tales of Bengal, and it runs on the same engine as Mother Holle: two sisters, one road, two very different journeys.
The story
A weaver had two wives and a daughter by each. Sukhu, the elder wife's girl, was spoiled and idle; Dukhu, the younger's, did the work of the house and got the blame for it. When the weaver died, the elder wife turned Dukhu and her mother out, and they lived in a hut at the edge of the village and spun cotton to eat.
One day Dukhu spread her cotton to dry, and a wind came and carried it away. She ran after it, crying, and the wind said, “Come with me.” On the road a cow called, “Dukhu, clean my shed and I will remember you.” She cleaned it. A banana tree asked her to pull the weeds from its roots, and she did. A horse asked for grass, and she cut it. At last she came to a hut where an old woman sat spinning moonlight: the Moon's mother.
“Bathe in my pond,” said the old woman, “but dip twice, not three times.” Dukhu dipped once and came up clean, and twice and came up in silk, with jewels in her hair. She ate what she was given, and when the old woman showed her a row of chests, she took the smallest. On the way home the horse gave her a winged colt, the tree a bunch of golden bananas, and the cow a calf. In the little chest were pearls. The wind set her down at her mother's door.
Sukhu heard, and set out to do the same. She threw her cotton to the wind and demanded it back. She told the cow, the tree and the horse to look after themselves. At the pond she dipped three times, to be sure, and came up with a face like a crow's. She snatched the biggest chest. The animals gave her nothing on the way home, and in the chest was a snake, and that was the end of Sukhu. Dukhu and her mother lived well, and in time Dukhu married a prince.
Where it comes from
The tale is Bengali, written down by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar in Thakurmar Jhuli, Grandmother's Bag of Tales, in 1907. Sukhu means happiness and Dukhu means sorrow, names given by the mothers, not earned by the girls.
What the tale is about underneath
Nobody tests Dukhu. The cow, the tree and the horse simply ask, and she helps because she is the kind of person who does, with no idea a reward is waiting. Sukhu knows exactly what is waiting and cannot bring herself to earn it. The tale is about the difference between doing good and doing good for a price, and the pond makes the point: same water, and the number of dips decides everything.
Reading aloud
Give the wind a rushing voice and the Moon's mother a slow one.
Write your own
Borrow the road walked twice. Lay out three small requests on the way to a reward and let your first character meet them without knowing they matter. Then send a second who knows exactly what is at stake and fails each one anyway. The pond is the extra engine: an instruction that greed cannot obey.
What writers can take from this
- Set up the two households in three sentences; the tale is about the road, not the house.
- Let each of the three helpers ask in its own voice: the cow lows, the tree rustles, the horse stamps.
- Make the moonlight spinning the one strange picture, and hold on it.
- Count the dips out loud, once and twice, and again for Sukhu, once, twice, three.
- End on Dukhu, not on the snake.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which the wind takes something small from a character and leads them along a road where three creatures ask for help. Let a second character, who has heard the whole story, follow the same road for the reward and refuse each request. The rule at the end should be one that greed cannot keep.
Questions
What is the moral of Sukhu and Dukhu?
Kindness given freely is rewarded, and kindness withheld for a reward is not. The tale adds a sharper point through the pond: instructions exist to be followed, and wanting more than you were promised turns the gift into its opposite.
Is Sukhu and Dukhu too scary for a 5-year-old?
No. The frightening moment is a single sentence about the snake in the chest, and most tellers move straight from it to Dukhu's good fortune. Everything else in the tale is gentle.
Where does Sukhu and Dukhu come from?
It is a Bengali folk tale, recorded by Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar in Thakurmar Jhuli in 1907. It belongs to the same family as the German Mother Holle: a kind girl and a greedy one take the same road to an old woman's house.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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