Story 67 - The Lizard And The Leopard

AT a village there are a Leopard and a Lizard.^[1] The Lizard and Leopard cut a chena, it is said. Afterwards both having quarrelled they divided the chena between them. In the part which the Lizard got he planted Kaekiri creepers, which became large ; in the part which the Leopard got the Kaekiri died, and he abandoned it.

Then the Leopard ate the Kaekiri fruit in the Lizard’s chena, and after eating rubbed himself on his hams over the fruits that were on the ground. So the Lizard gave some Kaekiri fruits to the smith, and having got a small knife made took it away. After getting it made, the Lizard ran it through some plucked Kaekiri fruits [and left it there].

Afterwards the Leopard came to eat Kaekiri. Having eaten, he rubbed himself on the plucked Kaekiri fruits. Then the knife pierced him. Over this matter the Leopard and Lizard quarrelled. Afterwards the Leopard, having eaten cattle flesh, became strong again.

One day the Leopard told the Lizard that the Gamarala had a chena. The Lizard said,

“Ade ! Where is it ? Let me look at it.”

Having gone with him to it, the Leopard shows him the fruits and says,

“Ade ! Lizard, eat thou there. Lizard, eat thou here.”

The Gamarala having heard it and having gone home, began to laugh. The Gama-Mahage (his wife) asked,

“What are you laughing at ?”

The Gamarala said,

“A Leopard sitting in the chena was saying and saying to a Lizard,

‘Eat thou there, Lizard. Eat thou here, Lizard.’”

Afterwards, when the Lizard was in the chena the Leopard goes to the house of the Gamarala and says,

“Gamarala, see! The Lizard is eating thy chena.”

Then the Gamarala scolded him and said,

“I heard thee telling the Lizard, ‘ Eat thou there, Lizard. Eat thou here, Lizard.’”

Then the Leopard went to the Lizard, and said,

“Friend, take thou my piece of chena, and give me thy piece of chena.”

Because the Lizard was afraid he said,

“It is good,”

and they exchanged chenas. The Lizard planted the abandoned piece in a thorough manner. The Leopard ate the fruits in the part which he got, until they were finished.

After that, the Leopard went to the Lizard again, and said,

“Friend, let us exchange chenas again.”

The Lizard felt anger which he could not bear, but because he was afraid he said again,

“It is good,”

to that also.

Afterwards, the Lizard went to a man, and asked him to tell him a way of succeeding, so as to fight the Leopard. The man said,

“When he asks you again, say you will not. The Leopard will come and quarrel with you. Then say, ' We cannot fight in that manner. You go, and after asking your mother about a means of success, return. I will go, and after asking my mother about a means of success, will return.’ Having said it and come away, and having rolled in the mud and dried it, and again rolled in the mud and dried it, by rolling in the mud and doing thus you will become big. After that go to fight. The Leopard’s claws will not enter your body.”

All this the man told the Lizard.

Afterwards, one day the Leopard said,

“Let us exchange chenas.”

The Lizard told him as the man said. When the Leopard went to his mother she told him to rub coconut oil over his body.

The Lizard having gone to a mud holte, jumps into it, and climbs onto a post to dry the mud. Again it jumps into the mud and climbs onto the post. Thus, having acted in that manner he caused much mud to be smeared on his body.

After that, having met each other, the Leopard and Lizard quarrelled again, and struck each other on the face. Then the Lizard springs on the Leopard’s back and scratches his flesh. The Leopard jumps about, but only scratches mud off the Lizard.

Having fought in that way, the Leopard, becoming afraid, went away. The Lizard went and washed off the mud.

The Leopard having gone and crawled under the com store at a house, while sitting there says,

“Bite thou me here, too, Lizard. Bite thou me here, too, Lizard.” ^[2]

While he was there saying it he saw a boy [near him]. Then the Leopard says,

“Ade ! Do not tell any one, or I will kill thee.”

Because of it, the boy being afraid did not tell any one.

Afterwards the Leopard, thinking,

“The boy will tell it,”

came while the boy ^[3] was asleep on the bed [in the veranda], and having crept under the bed, lifted it on his back and went off with it, in order to eat him. When the boy awoke and saw that the Leopard was going along carrying him, he caught hold of a branch and hung by it. After the Leopard, having gone a long distance, looked back the boy was not there.

Then the Leopard came running back to seek him. Having seen that the boy was on a branch, the Leopard asked,

“Art thou descending to the ground, boy ? I shall eat thee.”

The boy said,

“Ade ! Bola, art thou saying Bana ? ^[4] I have no means of stretching out my hands to descend,”

he said.

“What is in thy hands ?”

he asked.

“In this hand I have small Lizard’s eggs ; in this other hand I have large Lizard’s eggs,”

he said.

“A sort of Lizards as big as Talipat trunks and Coconut trunks will be coming.”

Then the Leopard, saying,

“Stay thou there, boy, until I have run a little far,”

bounded off and ran away.

Duraya. North-western Province.

 

Note:

In The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 117 S., the latter part of this tale was given by Miss J. A. Goonetilleke, containing the fight of the animals and the incidents that follow it. The animals were a ‘ ‘ Bloodsucker ” Lizard and a “tiger,” a word often used in Ceylon where “leopard” is intended to be understood. There are no tigers in Ceylon.

An incident like that in the chena, in which the knife wounded the Leopard, is found in Old Deccan Days (Frere), p. 177. In it a barber tied a knife to a cucumber, and it wounded a Jackal who began to eat the fruit.

In Wide-Awake Stories (Steel and Temple), p. 240— Tales of the Punjab, p. 227—a woman who was being carried ofi by robbers while on her bed, seized a branch and climbed up a tree when they paused under a Banyan tree. The same incident is given in The Orientalist, vol. i, p. 40.

With regard to the fear of the lizard which the leopard is described in the Sinhalese story as exhibiting, I am able to state that it is not much exaggerated. Many years ago, on returning to my bungalow one day, at a tank in a wild part of the jungle, I found that a lizard of the species mentioned in this tale—a Katussa or “Bloodsucker” —had entered my bedroom. I brought up a tame, full-grown leopard which I then had, and introduced it to the lizard, as a new experience for it. At first it was inclined to play with the lizard, but on pretending to seize it with its mouth it felt the spikes on the lizard’s back, and immediately showed the greatest fear of it. The attempts which it made to escape when the lizard came in its direction were quite ridiculous, and it became so terrified that I was obliged to take it away to the security of its den, a large packing-case under a tree to which it was tethered, leaving the lizard the complete master of the situation, though probably nearly equally alarmed.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Katussa (Calotes sp.), a small lizard with a long tail, and spikes on the back, commonly called “Bloodsucker” in Ceylon.

[2]:

Perhaps this means that the Leopard found some places where the Lizard had not yet bitten him.

[3]:

A variant says it was the Gamarala.

[4]:

“Art thou reciting the Buddhist Scriptures ?” Used colloquially with the meaning, “What nonsense you are talking.”