Story 203 - The Elephant-Fool

THERE is a man’s elephant. Yet [another] man having gone [to him], said,

“Friend, give (that is, lend) me your elephant; there is a work for me to do for myself,”

and asked for it. Then the man who owned the elephant says,

“Take it and go.”

Afterwards the man having taken it, while it was doing his work the elephant died.

Afterwards this man having come, says,

“Friend, while your elephant was with me it died. On that account am I to take an elephant and give it to you; or if not am I to give the money it is worth ?”

he asked.

Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says,

“I don’t want another elephant; I don’t want the money, too. Give me my elephant itself,”

he says.

Then this man says,

“I cannot give the elephant that died. Do the thing that thou canst,”

he said.

Thereupon the man who owned the elephant says,

“I will kill thee.”

One day, having seen this man who owned the elephant coming, this man’s wife says to the man,

“Placing a large water-pot near the door, shut the door.”

This one having said,

“It is good,”

placed a large water-pot near the door, and shut the door.

Thereupon the man who owned the elephant having come to the house, asked the woman,

“Where is thy husband ?”

Then the woman said,

“There. He is in the house.”

Having said,

“Open the door, courtesan’s son,”

when he struck his hand on the door the door opened, and the water-pot was broken.

Then this woman asks for it, saying,

“After thou hast broken my water-pot, give it to me immediately.”

The man said,

“I will bring a water-pot and give you it.”

“I don’t want another; give me my very water-pot,” she says.

Thereupon, being unable to escape from this woman, having said,

“For the debt of the elephant let the water-pot be substituted,”

the man who owned the elephant went away.

Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.

 

Notes:

A variant related by a Potter is nearly similar, except that both, persons instituted lawsuits for the recovery of the elephant and the waterpot. The judge who tried the cases was the celebrated Mariyada Raman, termed by the narrator “Mariyaddurame,” a word which suggests the name Amir Abd ur-Rahman.

There is also a Chinese variant, given in Chinese Nights’ Entertainments (A. M. Fielde), p. m, in which a dishonest old woman lent a newly-married girl her cat, in order to kill the mice. The cat ran home, and the woman then applied for its return, praised its excellence, and estimated its value at two hundred ounces of silver. The girl discovered that her father-in-law had once lent the woman an old wooden ladle, and when the old woman called again about the cat she reminded her of it, and demanded its return. The cases were taken before a magistrate. The girl claimed that the ladle was made from a branch which fell down from the moon, and never diminished the food, oil, or money from which anything was taken by means of it; and she asserted that her father-in-law had refused an offer of three thousand ounces of silver for it. The magistrate decided that the two claims balanced each other.