Village Folk-tales of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), vol. 1-3

by Henry Parker | 1910 | 406,533 words

This folk-tale entitled “the leopard and the mouse-deer” is gathered from oral sources sources, tracing its origin to ancient Ceylon (Sri Lanka). These tales are often found to contain similarities from stories from Buddhism and Hinduism. This is the story nr. 31 from the collection “stories told by the cultivating caste and vaeddas”.

Story 31 - The Leopard And The Mouse-deer

IN a jungle wilderness in the midst of the forest there is a rock cave. In the cave a Leopard dwells. One day when the Leopard had gone for food a lame female Mouse-deer (Miminni) crept into the cave, and gave birth to two young ones.

Afterwards the Mouse-deer having seen that the Leopard, having got wet at the time of a very great rainfall, was coming to the cave, began to beat the young ones, so the young ones began to squall. Then the Mouse-deer came out, saying,

“There is fresh Leopard’s flesh, there is dried Leopard’s flesh; what else shall I give you ? Having eaten these, still you are crying in order to eat fresh Leopard’s flesh !”

As the Mouse-deer was saying it, the Leopard heard it, and thought,

“They are going to eat me,”

and having become afraid, sprang off and ran away, thinking,

“I will go to my Preceptor, and tell him.”

Having gone to him, the Jackal said,

“What is it, Sir? You are running as though afraid. Why ?”

he asked.

The Leopard then replied,

“Preceptor, the danger that has happened to me is thus : A Mouse-deer having crept into the cave that I live in, and having borne young ones there, as I was returning came shouting and springing to eat me. Through fear of it I came running away,”

he said to the Jackal.

The Jackal then said,

“ What of that! Don’t be afraid.

I will come with you and go there. As soon as I go I will bite her and cast her out.”

As they went near the cave, the Leopard having lagged a very little behind, said,

“ Friend, I cannot go, I cannot go”

Then the Jackal said,

“If you are afraid to that extent, be so good as to go after tying a creeper to my neck, and tying the other end to your waist, Sir,”

he said to the Leopard.

So bringing a creeper, and tying one end to the Jackal’s neck, and tying the other end to the Leopard’s waist, they set off to go to the cave.

As they were going there, the Mouse-deer, having seen that the Jackal was bringing the Leopard, began to beat the young ones.

When the young ones were squalling, the Mouse-deer having come out, says,

“Don’t cry ; the Jackal is bringing another Leopard for you.”

Then she says to the Jackal,

“Jackal-artificer, after I told you to bring seven yoke of Leopards, what has the Jackal-artificer come for, tying a creeper to only this one lean Leopard ?”

After she had asked this, the Leopard thought,

“They have joined with the Jackal, and are going to kill me,”

and began to run off. Then the creeper having become tightened round the Jackal’s neck, the Leopard ran away, taking him along, causing the Jackal-artificer to strike and strike against that tree, this tree, that stone, this stone.

The Leopard having gone a great distance in the jungle, after he looked [found that] the creeper had become thoroughly tightened on the Jackal-artificer’s neck.

Having seen that he was grinning and showing his teeth, the Leopard says,

“The laugh is at the Jackal-artificer.

I was frightened, and there is no blood on my body,”

he said.

When he looked again, the Jackal was dead, grinning with his teeth and mouth.

North-western Province.

 

Note:

This story is given in The Orientalist, vol. iv, p. 79 (D. A. Jaya-wardana), but the animals that went to the cave are wrongly termed tiger and fox, which are not found in Ceylon.

It is also related in vol. iv, p. 121 (S. J. Goonetilleke)., the animals being a hind and a tiger.

In vol. i, p. 261, there is a Santal story (J. L. Phillips), in which a goat with a long beard, which had taken refuge in a tiger’s cave frightened it when asked,

“Who are you with long beard and crooked horns in my house ?”

by saying,

“I am your father.”

A monkey returned with it, their tails being tied together. When they came to the cave, the monkey asked the same question, and received the same answer, which frightened both animals so much that they fled, the monkey’s tail being pulled off. When the tiger stopped, and began to lick himself, he found the monkey’s tail so sweet that he went back and ate the monkey.

In the Panchatantra (Dubois), a bearded goat frightened a lion that he found in a cave in which he took refuge, by saying,

“I am the Lord He-goat. I am a devotee of Siva, and I have promised to devour in his honour 101 tigers, 25 elephants, and 10 lions.”

He had eaten the rest, and was now in search of the lions. A jackal persuaded the lion to return, but the goat frightened them again.

In Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 303, a pandit frightened a demon in this manner, by scolding a wrestler who brought for dinner an apparent goat which the pandit recognised as a demon.

In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 132 fi.— Tales of the Punjab, p. 123 ff.—a farmer’s wife frightened a tiger that was going to eat a cow. A jackal persuaded it to return, their tails being tied together. On the tiger’s running off again, the jackal was jolted to death.

In The Indian Antiquary, vol. iv, p. 257, there is a Santal story by Rev. E. T. Cole, of a tiger which was frightened by two brothers. The three sat round a fire and asked riddles. The tiger’s was,

“One I will eat for breakfast, and another like it for supper.”

The men expressed their inability to guess the answer, and their riddle was,

“One will twist the tail, the other will wring the ear.”

When the tiger was escaping, they held the tail till it came off.    -

In Tota Kahant (Small), p. 98, a lynx took possession of a tiger’s cave, and behaved like the' mouse-deer when the tiger came up. When the tiger returned with a monkey, the lynx frightened it like the mouse-deer, by telling its young ones that a monkey friend had sworn to" bring a tiger that day. On hearing this, the tiger killed the monkey, and fled.

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