Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 27, 1916.djvu/167

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There was a Hare and he was the friend of a Man. One day the Hare said, "Let us kill our mothers, then we shall both be free." The Man thought it would be good, so he killed his mother. The Hare did not kill his mother; he only took his knife and stabbed at a plant with red juice till his knife was red, then he showed it to the Man and said, "With this knife I killed her." The Man thought she was dead, because he never saw her again; but the Hare had put her up in the sky. Every day he used to go by himself and she used to let down a rope and pull him up and give him food. The Man had no one to feed him. He saw that the Hare was very fat and asked him who fed him. The Hare said, "No one." Then the Man watched him and saw how he went to a certain place and said, "Cast down the rope," and a rope came down and he climbed up. So the next day the Man went and said, "Cast down the rope"; but his voice was too loud. The Hare's mother knew it was not her child. So then the Hare came and the Man hid away and listened. He heard the Hare say softly, "Cast down the rope," and the rope came down and the Hare climbed up. Another day the Man went and said very softly, "Cast down the rope," and the Hare's mother thought it was her son, so she let down the rope and the Man went up. He killed the Hare's mother and all the Hare's little ones; only one remained alive. Then he went away. When the Hare came he found the rope hanging: he went up and saw that his mother and all his little ones were dead except one small hare. He asked it, "Who has done this?" and it said, "Your friend the Man." The Hare went to his hut and wept. The Man came in and found him weeping and said, "What is the matter? why do you weep?" He said, "The sun is hurting my eyes." Next day he went and got red stones and heated them in a pot. He told the