Page:The jade story book; stories from the Orient (IA jadestorybooksto00cous).pdf/338

322 And they went home, leaving him in the rock.

Some time after this Lumawig decided to go back to the sky to live, but before he went he took care that his wife should have a home. He made a coffin of wood and placed her in it with a dog at her feet and a cock at her head. And as he set it floating on the water, he told it not to stop until it reached Tinglayen. Then, if the foot struck first, the dog should bark; and if the head end was the first to strike, the cock should crow. So it floated away, on and on, until it came to Tinglayen.

Now a widower was sharpening his axe on the bank of the river, and when he saw the coffin stop, he went to fish it out of the water. On the shore he started to open it, but Fukan cried out, "Do not drive a wedge, for I am here." So the widower opened it carefully and took Fukan up to the town, and then, as he had no wife of his own, he married her.