Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/58

50 animals taken by the tiger. When he saw him coming back empty-handed he entered into conversation with him, and spake the following gâthâ:—

On hearing this the tiger gave utterance to the following gâthâ:—

Then that false ascetic excited the tiger to renewed effort, saying, "Don't be afraid, go; and when you have given a roar, make a spring, then all affrighted they will break up and make off." The tiger on being stirred up to make a fresh attempt, plucked up courage, went back, and stood on the mountain top.

The carpenter's hog stood between the two pits (i.e., between the excavated pit and the dyke). "Master," said the hogs, "that big thief has returned." "Don't be alarmed, I'll capture him now."

The tiger roared, and then bounded over the carpenter's hog, who, as he was making a spring, turned quickly aside and dropped straight into the excavated pit. The tiger, unable to moderate his speed, went rolling over and over across the face of the dyke, and fell into that part of the excavated pit where the entrance was very narrow, and there he was, as it were, completely jammed in.

The carpenter's hog came out of the pit, and with lightning-speed struck his tusk into the tiger's groin, until he severed the region of the kidneys, then he buried his tusk into the flesh that possessed five savours. Then he wounded the tiger on the head, and, tossing him aside, he cast him outside the pit, saying to his followers, "Here, take hold of your foe!"

Those that came first got the tiger's flesh, but those that came later on went about smelling the mouths of the others. "Tiger's flesh of some kind, is it not?"