Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 5 1887.djvu/160

 152 visited her as two sprightly young men. One day the crab proposed that in order to make themselves irresistible, they should go to a certain place and pluck enough of a particular berry to make circlets for their heads. The monkey assented. As the crab could not climb, the monkey went up and threw down the berries, which the crab was to gather up: instead of doing so, his greed overcame him, and he ate them as fast as they fell, until the monkey, astonished at the crab's still replying that the quantity was not yet sufficient, came down. He at once saw what his friend had been doing, and the two began mutual recriminations. The crab, at the same time, knowing he was no match for the monkey, kept carefully backing towards a small crevice; and when the monkey in a climax of rage made a dash at him, he quietly withdrew from reach, leaving his assailant to cool down as best he might. As it was getting dark the monkey hastened to assume the human form, and visit the fair maiden. When on their amorous visitations the monkey always sat down on the large rice mortar: the crab, remembering this, determined to revenge himself, and before the monkey arrived was snugly drawn together on the bottom of his companion's wonted seat. The pretended youth entered, took his usual seat, and began a flirtation, but the crab, crawling up, reached for the tail coiled up under the rear apron, and viciously nipped it. With a howl the impostor jumped up, displaying to the astonished gaze of the maiden and household fully a yard of hairy tail, with a crab dangling at its extremity. Of course he was driven away in scorn, and the crab, with a feeling of great contentment, sidled off to its nest.

The foregoing is no doubt intended to exemplify a triumph of mind over matter; our next, however, relates an encounter between the two, in which the victory is not so decided. The explanation given of the venom of serpents in general and the bulong snake in particular, with the punishment meted out to the species, causes one to ponder over a tale which, in its main points, strangely agrees with parts of the third chapter of Genesis:

A bulong snake fell in love with a young girl, to whom he appeared as a handsome young suitor, eluding the vigilance of her parents by not changing his form until he had got inside the house. It was the