Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/94

84 The Bold Baby.

A rajah was once playing with his baby son, when the infant, who was very young, suddenly clutched at his father's beard and pulled it so violently the rajah exclaimed for pain, and angrily cried out, "Take the child away and kill it." The vizier interposed, and said, "Sir, this is a very brave child, and will do what you would not dare. You must spare him." "What?" cried the rajah; "that infant do what I would not dare?" "Yes," said the vizier, "and I will prove it you." And he ordered a great snake to be brought to the palace; and the baby, when put down on the ground near it, clutched with his little hands at the snake's tail and tried to put it to his mouth. The rajah smiled upon this, and thus the vizier saved the baby's life.

Servan.

There was once a good man who, as his parents were poor and old, had them to live with him. But his wife grudged the old people their food, which she had to cook; so she went to the potter and bade him make her a cooking pan with a partition in the middle. This the potter did; and ever afterwards this wicked woman used to cook the rice in sour buttermilk on the one side and in sweet fresh milk on the other, and she always gave the old people the buttermilk side. One day Servan came home earlier than usual from his bath, and as the old folk were hungry he took the rice off the fire and doled some out to them, chancing upon the good side of the pan. The poor old parents thus found their food much better than other days, and, greatly relishing it, called down the blessings of God upon their son. "Surely this is the same as you always have?" cried he, surprised. "Oh no!" replied they, "our food is always sour." Servan's wife, who just then came in, angrily cried out, "We all eat out of the same pot." But Servan's suspicions were roused, and he examined the pot, and discovering the trickery was so angry with his wife that he led her into the jungle and there left her. Then he put his old parents in a banghi and carried them away, they were so thin