Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 3 1885.djvu/69

Rh the serpent had come down and bitten Râjâ Rasâlu. So he went back and sat on the râjâ's neck  and when the scorpion came up on to the râjâ's breast  the hedgehog caught him by the leg. The scorpion called out krán krán, and the serpent said "What's the matter with you?" "Something has caught my foot," cried the scorpion; "I see you are black," said the serpent, "and there is something black at your feet. I see nothing wrong there."

Then the hedgehog made himself known to the serpent by taking the scorpion by the legs and turning him upside down. "Who are you?" said the serpent; "what kind of animal are you?" "I am a hedgehog," said he, taking the scorpion's legs in his mouth. This made the scorpion cry out krán krán again, and he said to the serpent, "O, my friend, don't bother him any more."

cried out the hedgehog, being chief of all the hedgehogs, "I'll kill Kalîr here, and afterwards Talîr."

Then Talîr the serpent called out, "Friend hedgehog, let go my friend, and I will suck the poison out of the râjâ." "Very well," said the hedgehog, "you suck out the poison while I feed your friend with fruit in the garden."

"Then please take him away quickly," said Talâr the serpent.

So the hedgehog began dragging the scorpion through the thorns, and went on so long that the scorpion died.

Meanwhile the serpent sucked the poison out of Râjâ Rasâlu, and when the râjâ came to himself the hedgehog told him to kill the serpent and the râjâ did so."

Once on a time, when Kâlinga reigned at Dantapura, Assaka reigned at Potali in the Assaka territory. Kâlinga, though endowed with great power and as strong as an elephant himself, found no foe that was a match for him in war. He made it known to his ministers that