Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/382

 374 FOLK-TALES OP INDIA.

and lover, as she sat weeping and wailing, and he determined to come and reprove that woman and put her to shame.

Taking Matali (his charioteer) and Paiicasikha (one of his musicians) with him he proceeded to that place where the woman was, and, standing on the bank of the stream, gave them the following instruc- tions :

" Do you, Mutali, become a fish, and you, Pancasikha, take the form of a bird; but 1, under the guise of a jackal, with a piece of meat in my mouth, will go to the place exactly opposite to that woman. Do you. Matali, when I get there, dart out of the water and fall in front of me; then I, dropping the piece of meat that I've got in my mouth, will make a spring to catch the fish. At that instant do you, Pancasikha, seize the piece of meat and fly up with it into the air ; and do you, Matali, drop into the water." " So be it, sire," they replied. Matali turned into a fish, Pancasikha became a bird, but Indra took the form of a jackal, with a lump of flesh in his mouth, and went to a spot exactly opposite to that woman.

The fish leapt out of the water, and alighted in front of the jackal, which thereupon dropped the piece of meat it had in its mouth, and bounded forward to seize the fish. The fish sprang up and fell into the water, and the bird seized the piece of meat and flew up into the air with it. The jackal, that had got neither the meat nor the fish, sat near the E^agala bush quite chap-fallen and sad. That woman saw it, and thought to herseH — " Through its over-greediness it has got neither the meat nor fish." Thereupon, she burst out in a roar of laughter ; 'twas just as if she were crashing a jar.

On hearing that the jackal spake the following gdtha: —

" pray who is this that sits by the bush, And gave such a laugh that startled us all ? No music I bear, nor dancing, nor song ; No cause of great mirth do I find round about ; Ob I why, O Susso/ii, so lovely and fair, Pray wby did you laugh when weeping you were ? "

In reply, she spake the following gdtha:—'

" jackal so brown, most stupid are you, No skill have you got, nor knowledge, nor wit. Yonr fisb bave you lost, your meat is all gone, And now you sit grieving, all poor and forlorn."