Page:Katha sarit sagara, vol2.djvu/79

 fall from his hand into the water. The fool took notes of the spot, observing the eddies and other signs in the water, and said to himself: " I will bring it up from the bottom, when I return." He reached the other side of the sea, and as he was re-crossing, he saw the eddies and other signs, and thinking he recognized the spot, he plunged into the water again and again to recover his silver vessel. When the others asked him what his object was, he told them, and got well laughed at and abused for his pains. " Now hear the story of the king who wished to substitute other flesh for what he had taken away."

Story of the king who replaced the flesh.* :—A foolish king saw from his palace two men below. And seeing that one of them had taken flesh from the kitchen, he had five palas of flesh cut from his body. When the flesh had been cut away, the man groaned and fell on the earth, and the king, seeing him, was moved with compassion, and said to the warder: " His grief cannot be assuaged because five palas of flesh were cut from him, so give him more than five palas of flesh by way of compensation. The warder said: " When a man's head is cut off, does ho live even if you give him a hundred heads?" Then he went outside and had his laugh out, and comforted the man from whom the flesh had been cut, and handed him over to the physicians. " So you see, a silly king knows how to punish, but not how to shew favour. Hear this story of the silly woman who wanted another son."

Story of the woman who wanted another son.† :- One day a woman with only one son, desiring another, applied to a wicked female ascetic belonging to a heretical sect. The ascetic told her that, if she killed her young son and offered him to the divinity, another son would certainly be born to her. When she was preparing to carry out this advice, another and a good old woman said to her in private: " Wicked woman, you are going to kill the son you have already, and wish to get another. Supposing a second is not born to you, what will you do?" So that good old woman dissuaded her from crime.

lated from the Stanislas Julien, Paris, 1859 where this story is found (No. LXIX.) He compares a story of an Irishman who was hired by a Yarmouth Malster to assist in loading his ship. As the vessel was about to set sail, the Irishman cried out from the quay. " Captain, I lost your shovel overboard, but I cut a big notch on the rail-fence, round stem, just where it went down, so you will find it when you come back." Vol. II, p. 544, note. Liebrecht thinks he has read something similar in the 'Atrrcia of Hierokles. See also Bartsch, Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche aus Meklenburg, vol. I, p. 349.