Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/155

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There was a Man who had often tried to get the Hare and kill him. One day he caught him and said, "Now, I have got you!" and tied him up to a tree and went to get some fire. He wanted to set all the grass round about alight and then the Hare would be burnt too. The Hare sat quiet until he saw a Jackal coming down the road; then he began to call out very loud. The Jackal said, "What is the matter?" The Hare said, "That man will go and get meat to feed me; and I don't know how to eat it." The Jackal said, "All right, if you don't like it, come away and tie me up where you are, because I am hungry for meat." He loosened the Hare and the Hare tied him up in his place.

By and bye a crowd came back with the Man shouting, "We'll burn you!" The Jackal says, "What are they shouting?" The Hare says, "They are saying they are bringing a great deal of meat." After the grass was burnt, the people found the body of the Jackal; but the Hare ran away.

Another time the Man caught him and shut him up in a hut and told his Picanins to watch the hut while he went to get fire to burn it down with the Hare inside. While the father was away the Children heard the Hare saying, "Can you eat meat like that your mother has given me?" The Children say, "No." So he says, "It is very good; come in and try. Open the door and come in." They open the door and he goes out and when they are in he shuts them up. The Man comes back with the fire and burns the hut. The one Child says, "I am not a Hare, father; I am your child"; but the Man says, "No, I know you are the Hare." The other cries out his own name, but the Man will not listen and burns them and the Hare laughs.