Story 176 - Concerning The Crows And The Owls

IN a rock cave Crows and Owls made their dwelling. At night (rae dawasafa) the eyes of the Owls see; the Crows’ do not see. Night after night having fallen, when the Crows and Owls had eaten, [the Owls] seized and seized the Crows, and began to pluck off the feathers [and eat them]. By that act the Crows began to be destroyed.

Thereafter the Crows spoke together:

“Should we [continue to] make our dwelling with this party we shall all be destroyed. Because of it let us go to another country.”

Out of that set one Crow said,

“You must make me stay [in order] to come [after] having killed the Owls. You all go.”

He said further,

“Having plucked off my feathers [until I am] like a pine-apple fruit, go ye.”

Afterwards those Crows having seized that Crow and plucked off his feathers [until he was] like a pine-apple fruit, went away.

The Owls having come, when they looked there was not a single Crow.

They asked that Crow,

“What is it, friend, that has happened to you ?”

Then the Crow says,

“Ane ! Friend, they said to me also,

‘Let us go.’

Because I said,

‘I will not,’

they seized me and plucked off my feathers, and the whole of them went away.”

Afterwards the Owls said,

“Friend, can you show us the country in which the Crows are ?”

Then the Crow says,

“If you will assist me a little I can show you it. Until the time when my feathers come you must bring and give me food.”

The Owls, having said,

“It is good,”

nourished the Crow until the time when its feathers came. It having said,

“Ane ! Friend, as it becomes evening a chill strikes me. At the time when you are coming you must bring and give me a very little firewood to warm me on account of the cold,”

the Owls one by one brought and gave the firewood. It heaped up on both sides of the doorway all this firewood that they are bringing.

At the time when all the Owls were inside the rock cave, after they were there, the Crow, having heaped all that firewood in the doorway, stealing a fire-stick and having come [with it], set fire to the firewood at the doors. All the Owls having been burnt, became ashes. The Crow went to the party of Crows.

North-western Province.

 

Note:

In Le Pantcha-Tanlra of the Abbe Dubois, the owls lived in a cave, the crows in a great tree some distance away. The Chief of the owls intended to cause himself to be elected King of the Birds. The crows foresaw the dangers to which this would expose them, and one of their Ministers offered to endeavour to save them, and going as a humble suppliant became an intimate friend of the owls. He afterwards went to the crows, returned with them at noon, each carrying firewood, blocked up the entrance to the cave while the owls were asleep, and then set fire to the wood and suffocated them.

In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 64, the crows lived in a great banyan tree; at night the owls killed many on account of their preventing the owl-King’s election as King of the Birds. By his own advice the feathers of a crow-Minister were plucked out, and he was left under the tree. When the owls found him he told them that this was his punishment for recommending the crows to conciliate the owls; he was taken to their cave and fed well until his feathers grew afresh. He then offered to bring the crows back to their tree where the owls could kill them, and at his recommendation the crows blocked the entrance to their cave with grass and leaves. The crow then fetched all the crows, each one carrying a stick and he himself a firebrand, the grass and sticks were set on fire, and all the owls were destroyed.

In Les Avadanas (Julien), No. V, vol. i, p. 31, the story is similar. It is also given in a contracted form in Cinq. Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. iii, p. 144.