Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/226

202 will ride him, going about among the tribes, I also, asking alms even as you." When his mother heard him speak thus, she was angry, and bid him hold his peace; she also went to correct him by hitting him with a stick, but the boy tried to escape from her, and the blow fell upon his head and killed him. Thus their child died.

At the time that the woman's parents died, and the herds were dispersed, and the flocks devoured by wolves and jackals, one only lamb had escaped from the destruction, and had taken refuge in a hole in the ground, where it remained hid all day, and only came out at night to graze. One day a hare came by, and as the lamb was not afraid of the hare, she did not hide herself from him; therefore the hare said to her, "O lamb, who art thou?" And the lamb answered, "I belong to a flock whose master died of grief because his children went away and forsook him; and when he died, the wolves and the jackals came and devoured all his flock, and I, even I only, escaped of them all, and I have hid myself in this hole. Thou, O hare, then, be my protector." Thus spoke the lamb.

But the hare answered, "Must not a lamb live in a flock? How shall a lamb live in a hole all alone? Behold, I will even bring thee to a place where are flocks of sheep, with whom thou mayest live as becometh a lamb."

"It were better we stayed here," replied the lamb