Page:Indian Fairy Tales (Stokes, 1879).djvu/76

64 "I am going to seek my fate, to ask it why I am so poor." "Then," said the alligator, "ask it also why for twelve years I have a great burning in my stomach." "I will," said the man.

Then he went on and on till he came to a tiger, who was lying on the ground with a great thorn sticking in his foot. This tiger had gone out one day to hunt for food, and not looking where he was going, he put his foot on the thorn, and the thorn ran into his foot. And so God grew very angry and said, "Because you are such a careless, stupid fellow, and don't look where you are going, for twelve years this thorn shall remain in your foot." "Where are you going?" the tiger asked the man. "I am going to seek my fate, to ask it why I am so poor. Some one told me that my fate was far, far away, a twelve years' journey from my own country, and that it was lying down, and that I must take a thick stick and beat it with all my might." "Ask it, too," said the tiger, "why for twelve years I have had this thorn in my foot and cannot get it out, though I have tried hard to do so." "Yes, I will," said the man.

Then he came to the place where every one's fate lives. The fates are stones, some standing and others lying on the ground. "This must be mine," he said; "it is lying on the ground, that's why I am so poor." So he took the thick stick he had in his hand, and beat it, and beat it, and beat it, but still it would not stir. As night was approaching he left off beating it, and God sent a soul into the poor man's fate, and it became a man, who stood looking at the poor man and said, "Why have you beaten me so much?" "Because you were lying down, and I am very poor, and at home my wife and my children are starving." "Oh, things will go well with you now," said the fate, and the man was satisfied. He said to his fate, "While coming here I met a camel who for twelve years has had to wander about with two