Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/237

 Collectanea. 201

particularly knowing, perhaps because the local animal is a poor one. The Dog is always in difficulties with the Hysena, and has to be very clever to get out of them. He once manages to play a trick on her, but it is the Goat who thinks out the plan. He is no match for the Jackal, The only two tales here concerning the Tortoise show him to be able to hold his own with the Spider and Man. The Elephant is not wise. The Snake, the Scorpion, and the Centipede are the friends of Man. Next to the Spider the Jerboa is usually regarded as being the most clever ; he also plays tricks on the Hysena and the Jackal. On the whole birds seem to have more brains than animals, though not always, and may advise and help even Man.

Instances of human beings taking the forms of animals or birds are numerous, as are the opposite transformations, and men may become even inanimate objects. Naturally all animals and birds can talk to Man, and sometimes things do also. Man is evidently closely connected with every other living thing, since one may marry the other and have children. It is therefore not to be wondered at that they behave in a similar way in regard, for instance, to living, feeding children, marriage, fleeing from creditors, working, and revenge. Honesty is by no means always the best policy, (indeed at times it is extremely unprofitable), but instances of the reward of gratitude are given, though ingratitude and trickery seldom seem to bring any punishment. In cases where certain conditions have to be observed, there is no objec- tion whatever to shirking them provided one be not found out. Some stories seem to point to some form of tests on initiation.

There is sometimes virtue in being swallowed, but if animals or insects act the part of Jack the Giant Killer they usually seem to kill their adversaries by cutting their way out of their hosts.

As regards marriage, a bachelor is looked down upon, so there is no need to extricate him from danger, and a girl should not raise objections to the husbands selected by her parents, — which is probably Mohammedan. I have a story in which girls wishing to be married to a certain youth have to guess his name. Where there are several wives there is of course jealousy, and many stories are told of the ill-treatment of the rival's children by the stepmother, but I have given only one here. The desire for