Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/164

136 The animals came back and the Tortoise cried, "Here he is!" They were very glad and said they would kill him. The Elephant held him; but not tight enough, so he ran away until he came to a great river and he turned himself into a stick. The Elephant chased him and when he came to the river he said, "If I had the Hare, I would kill him with this stick," and he picked up the stick and threw it across the river. It turned into the Hare again and he sat on the river bank and laughed at the Elephant.

Three children went to play on the veldt and they went very far. By and bye the rain came and they went under a big tree. It had a hollow trunk like a hut and the children went inside and waited; but the rain did not stop. It went on raining and by and bye the opening in the trunk shut up and the children were inside and could not get out. They remained shut up in the trunk for a month. One day a man from another kraal came to cut bark to make rope. He came to the big tree and struck it with his axe. Then he heard the voices of the children saying:

He tried to chop open the tree to get the children out; he wanted to kill them; they were not his brothers (i.e. of the same tribe); but he could not find the hollow. So he returned to his kraal without any bark. His brothers asked him why he had not brought any and he said he could not find the proper kind of tree.

Next day he went again to the tree and chopped at it a long time, trying to find the children, because he wanted to kill them; but he could not find the hollow.