Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/526

 518 tiger sitting there. But really it was only his own shadow, and no tiger. With that he leapt into the well, and there was drowned and perished.

Then the fox went back to his home, jumping for joy as he went. He called out to his brethren: "Come here! foxes and jackals!" They came up at his call, and were very angry, and said: "You fox! it was your turn to be eaten by the tiger; why have you come back? Now the tiger will be in a rage, and will come and kill two or three jackals and two or three foxes." But the fox answered them: "Don't you be afraid. I have killed that tiger." They all said: "You are a fox and he is a tiger; how then could you kill him?" He said: "Come, and I'll show him to you." They set out in great fear after the fox, and, trembling with fright, they came and stood at the mouth of the well. The fox gave a shout and said: "Come and see how I have slain the tiger and cast him into this well." They peeped in, and said that it was the truth, and that the tiger was lying dead in the well; and they all rejoiced exceedingly.

II.

There was once a king who had a boil on his face, and many doctors physicked him, but it would not heal. One day a physician came to him, and said: "Buy a lad and kill him, take out his liver and tie it on the boil, and it will be healed." So the king had a proclamation made in the land. A starving man brought his son and sold him to the king, took his money, and went his way. The king ordered that the lad should be taken away and shut up in a room. The king's men took him away and shut him up in a room. Then the king considered in his heart that the lad was now old enough to understand, and "most likely", he thought, "he is now weeping because I am going to kill him." So he said to one of his men, "Go and see what the lad is doing." Then the man came back, and made this report