Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/526

 492 Collectanea.

When the monkey was out of sight, the jackal bit the nest, and the bees came out and stung him badly. Then the jackal went and lay down in some reeds which concealed a stream of water. " What are you doing ? "' asked the monkey. " I am watching the Sahib's clothes." "I am coming to help you," said the monkey. " Don't," said the jackal. But the monkey jumped down and fell into the water under the reeds and was drowned.

[This is probably an Indian story. There are no jackals in the Naga Hills except at the edge of the plains and round the Civil Station of Kohima.]

XVI. The Tale of the Fig Tree.

One day a man was going to another village and was benighted on the road. After it got dark he killed a ghost with his spear, and slept under a great stone in the shelter of a fig tree, and ate its fruit, because he had nothing else to eat. After he had lain down, many ghosts came with torches and called out to their friend: "Are you alive or dead?" The great stone answered: " Even if he be dead, the man who killed him has not been to me to-day." So the ghosts took up the corpse of their friend and went away. After this the man heard another tree call out to the fig tree : " I am sick, come and do worship {puja) to heal me." The fig tree replied : " I cannot come to-night, for I have a guest." A few minutes later the sick tree fell down. " That tree had fever for a long time," said the fig tree. Next morning the man got up, ate some figs, and went home, when he told them all that had happened. This is why the Angamis call the fig tree the Chief Priest of the trees.

[Possibly an importation from India, where the fig is one of the most sacred trees.]

XVII. The Tale of aft Ogress. '

Once upon a time there were two orphan boys who did not know how to till the fields and lived by snaring birds. An ogress used to come and eat the birds' heads. One day they saw her and asked her why she did this. She answered : " I had forgotten you.