Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/112

104 that he was going away, but thinking that, as they heard the sound of hewing trees, he was indeed working.

He continued doing so, cutting sticks as he went; he went off with the hoe and the axe.

At length the people heard no more the sound of cutting trees, for he had gone far into the forest, and had run away with the hoe.

They were surprised when they found that he had gone out of sight, like the setting sun.

Then the people said to each other, "This man has deceived us."

They quarrelled among themselves thereupon, but the man he continued to go beyond them.

As he went on, he lighted upon a village in the forest, where there resided an old woman and her children, together with the cattle, sheep, and goats, which the children tended.

So he said, "Grandmother, I wish to stay with thee here."

The old woman agreed, as also did her children.

So he remained in that place for the space of five days.

One day he said to the old woman, "Let us play."

The old woman replied, "I will play with thee."

So he said, "Take water, and bring it with a very big pot, and I will show thee."

The old woman brought water and a big pot.

He got firewood and made a large fire, and put the pot on the hearth, and poured the water into it.

When the water was warm, he said, "Now I will go into the water; and when I say, 'Grandmother, pull me out,' you must pull me out at once. Then you will go into the pot, and when you say, 'My child, pull me out!' I will pull thee out at once."

So did he, day after day, and the grandmother did so too.

But it happened on a certain day that he said, "I will kill this old woman."