Page:Folk-lore of the Telugus.djvu/17

 III. THE OLD WOMAN, THE COCK AND THE CHAFING DISH.

In the village of Pennagarai, on the road from Conjeeveram to Wandiwash, there lived an old woman wlo had a chafing dish and a cock. Day after day at early morn, when the first streaks of light were visible, the cock would crow. All the villagers would then rise, procure fire at her house and go their ways. This state of affairs had run on for a long time, till the old dame took into her head that the day dawned because her cock crew. She observed that all the villagers cooked and ate after getting fire from her house, and she wanted to see how the day could dawn if she quitted the village, and how the villagers would manage to eat. So she went, unknown to anybody in the village, to a wood afar off with her cock and her chafing dish and sat down there. The next morrow, all the villagers arose, came as usual to the old woman's house,