Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/52

 40 see if you had allowed us to come and sit on the tree, you would have had something good to eat; but as you were selfish, and would not let any one share with you, God is angry and has punished you by giving you a hollow fruit." Then the cuckoo called all the other birds, and they came and mocked the bulbul. "Ah! you see God has punished you for your selfishness," they said. The bulbul got very angry and all the birds went away. After they had gone, the bulbul said to the tree, "You are a bad tree. You are of use to no one. You give food to no one." The tree said, "You are mistaken. God made me what I am. My flower is given to sheep to eat. My cotton makes pillows and mattresses for man."

Since that day no bulbul goes near a cotton-tree.

Told by Dunkní.