Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/580

270 "Dispersion of Crabs." We have, therefore, a complete chain of places in which the tale crops up from Demagri to the banks of the Brahmaputra, about 270 miles in an air-line, among tribes which to the superficial observer are very unlike each other.

The second portion of the tale, regarding the disposal of the bat's foot, does not appear in any of the other versions; but the idea of trying to find who is the greatest appears in an Angami tale, styled "The Rat Princess and the Greedy Man," which Mr. Hutton gives in a recent book on that tribe. A man catches a rat and puts it into a box. The rat turns into a beautiful girl, whom the man decides to sell to the greatest man in the world with a view to getting the highest possible price. He goes in succession to the King, the Water, the Wind and the Mountain, each of whom refers him to the next as the more powerful. Finally, the Mountain says, "Yea, I am greater and stronger than some, but even a rat can pierce my side whenever he likes. Thus for his works' sake the rat is greater than I." So the man returns home, and finds the girl has again become a rat.

In a Sema story two puppies are left motherless, and ask God, "Between heaven and earth who is the greatest?" with a view to prevailing on the mighty one to avenge them. God sends them to the tiger, and they sleep in his house. In the night a breeze came blowing and the tiger became afraid, and said, "The elephant is greater than I; say nothing." In the elephant's house and then in the Spirit's house the same thing occurs. The Spirit sends them to the man. In the night a breeze came blowing. The pups put the man's heart to the proof. The man unafraid in spite of the darkness, said to the pups, "Do not be afraid." So the pups joyfully stayed with the man, and with him they hunted the Sambhur who had killed their