Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 4 1886.djvu/71

Rh The lion, pressing his mouth on the elephant's frontal globe, thrice roared an indisputable lion's roar.

The elephants became alarmed, and caused the jackal to fall at their heels; then they trod upon his head and crushed him to pieces. There forsooth Sabbadâtha lost his life.

The elephants, too, on hearing the lion's' roar, were frightened to death, and, wounding one another, they also there suffered loss of life. Except the lions, all the quadrupeds (the rest of the deer, hogs, &c. save the hares and cats) lost their lives in that place.

The lions then made off and entered the forest. For twelve yojanas round there was nothing but a mass of flesh. The Bodhisat, coming down from the tower, caused the gates of the city to be opened. And by beat of drum throughout the city he issued the following order:—"Having removed the bean-meal from your ears, let all those desirous of flesh take it."

The populace ate what moist-flesh they could, desiccated the remainder, and made dried-flesh of it. In that time, it is said, that the making of dried-flesh arose.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF FOLK-TALES.

HE first volume of the Folk-Lore Record contains an article entitled "Notes on Folk-Tales," in which Mr. Ralston, after considering certain proposed classifications of such stories, says, "Their weak point is that in them too much attention is generally paid to the mere framework of the story, the setting, which often varies with time and place; more stress being often laid upon the accidental than the essential parts of a tale." Mr. Ralston therefore suggests another classification, based on the general character of each story, where, in the first place, folk-tales are divided into mythological and non-mythological. The mythological stories are then classed according to the principal myth they illustrate