Village Folk-tales of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), vol. 1-3
by Henry Parker | 1910 | 406,533 words
This folk-tale entitled “the kadambawa men and the hares” 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. 41 from the collection “stories of the tom-tom beaters”.
Story 41 - The Kadambawa Men And The Hares
THE Kadambawa men having gone to set nets, a great many hares were caught in the nets. Afterwards the men, having seized the hares, doubled up the hind legs of the hares at the joints, and the fore-legs at the joints, and threw them on the ground, in order to make a heap of them in one place afterwards. Then all the hares ran away into the jungle.
After all the hares in the nets had been finished, when they looked for the dead hares there was not even one hare.
Then the men were astonished at the coming to life of the hares which they had killed, saying,
“How thoroughly we killed the hares !”
After having become fixed like stone [with astonishment] until nightfall, they went in the evening to their houses.