Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/36

 in the tent. At that time daughter wanted to steal some of the provisions, so that she might eat them without her mother's knowledge. In comes the corpse of the father and says, "Why do you steal?" Then the daughter said to him, "Must the dead indeed rise again?" and she struck him with the poker, that is, the stick burnt at the end, which lay close to the stove to stir the charcoal with. That is why the hare has a black mark on his tail. —(Udja, a Torgout of Tarbagatai.)

In olden days a Lhama who understood magic made a living machine, and thought to subdue all the khans on the earth, and be himself sole khan. With this view he made a beast which could when it ate destroy men. This was the camel, which had then the horns of the reindeer. He struck men with his horns and bit them with his teeth. The camel destroyed many nations, until a khan who was then Guigên placed in his nose a wooden stick, and fastened to it a rein, and, calling the wild beast "Têmên" (camel), subdued him thus, "Bear henceforth wood argal" (fuel made of dung), said the khan. Then the camel began to carry argal, and man began to lead him by the nose to drink.

Once, when the camel was browsing on grass, the reindeer (Cervus Elephas) came to him. The reindeer then had only horns, like the Tsa (Cervus Tarandus, northern deer). The reindeer said, "Give me thy horns: to-day is the marriage of the lion and tiger. To-morrow, when thou comest to the drinking-place, I will return them to thee." The camel gave his horns. On the morrow he went to the drinking-place, but there was no reindeer; so the camel was left without horns, for the reindeer had tricked him. That is why the camel now, when he drinks water, looks about to right and left, and lifts his head high—he is trying to see where the reindeer is. The reindeer also sheds his