Long, long ago, there was an orphan little girl named Shefali who lived with her maternal uncle and aunt. Her family were weavers and Shefali helped her uncle and aunt in their work. Shefali went to school during the day, and in the evening she did embroidery on clothes. She was perfect at embroidery.
One night she couldn't sleep; she was designing a princess gown. She kept imagining new embroidery designs and methods to decorate the gown. She came to the loom room and set up a gown to do beautiful embroidery on it. One after another, she stitched beautiful designs.
At that time of night, a fairy was passing through that area. She noticed that a little girl was working in the middle of the night. She slipped into the room and sat down beside Shefali, observing the girl's little fingers doing wonders on the clothes.
Shefali was so engrossed in her work that she didn't realize the presence of the fairy in the room.
After finishing her work, the little girl kept the gown in the proper place. But suddenly, she was frightened to hear a sound in her ear.
With a puff sound, the fairy came into sight.
"The gown is very beautiful. Will you give it to me?" the fairy asked.
After gaining a little courage, Shefali said to the fairy:
"These are not my things. I work for my uncle. You have to pay for each gown. I can't give it to you for free."
"But I don't have any money." The fairy said,
"In that case, you have to give me something in return as a payment, so that my uncle will not be angry with me." The girl said
"I have this bamboo basket; if you can take it in exchange for the gown, it will give me immense pleasure." The fairy said this, extending a bamboo basket with a lid.
The girl thought for a moment and gave the gown to the fairy in exchange for the bamboo basket. The fairy went away happily.
Next day, Shefali showed the bamboo basket to her uncle and narrated the incident of the night.
Her uncle was not pleased to get a bamboo basket in exchange for a costly gown, but he didn't want to discourage the innocent Shefali. So he gave it back to Shefali, saying "You keep it. It is your first earning from first sales."
So she kept it properly as a memento of her interaction with the fairy.
Once in the country, there was a great famine, land dried up, and no cultivation could be done, and there was a scarcity of food everywhere.
Shefali's family, relatives, and neighbors all struggled to get food. All started to save food and took less food during each meal. Shefali could not see children crying for food, and she also cried upon seeing this plight.
Shefali's aunty gave her bread for dinner one night. Shefali wanted to give it to the neighbor's child, so she hid the bread in the bamboo basket and covered the lid.
The next morning, when Shefali opened the basket to take the bread, she was surprised to see the basket was full of bread.
She rushed to her uncle and aunt and told them about the incident.
"Let's take out all the bread from the basket except one and see what happens," Shefali's uncle said.
They took out all the bread but one and closed the lid. Shefali opened it the next moment, and to their amazement, the basket was full of bread.
"The fairy had given a magical basket to Shefali." The uncle said this, smiling.
All cried in joy. They rushed outside and distributed bread to all. All the people of the town gathered in front of Shefali's house to collect food. No one remained hungry; Shefali ensured everyone got bread.
When the weather changed and the rain came, all realized they had only a few seeds in good condition to plant. People gathered good seeds and gave them to Shefali. She kept it in her basket, and they got enough seed to plant for that season.People expressed their gratitude to Shefali for her assistance during the famine and saving their lives.As time came to normal, Shefali kept the magical basket in her room to use it when it was very needed.
Soon after, the head of state heard about the tale of the magical basket. He became greedy and wanted to increase his wealth.He took the basket from Shefali by force and placed his family's gold in it, with the expectation of having a basket full of gold.Upon opening it, he was taken aback to discover a basket filled with black stones in place of his gold. He was in such a rage that he destroyed the basket.
He was unaware that the fairy had granted Shefali magical powers to open the basket and receive the gift she desired.
