"Look; he went there," she said.
Thereupon this very person, taking those sticks and creepers, and
turning to the same quarter, went in chase of him. [77]
At that time the Eastern Liar had gone to sleep. Having heard the sound
of the coming of the Western Liar, he arose. That person having become
frightened at the sound of his (the Western Liar's) coming, to take
the packet of cooked rice seized the branch on which is the packet of
cooked rice. Thereupon the tree, being completely uprooted, came into
his hand. Taking also the tree itself, the same person having got in
front ran away. This very person (the Western Liar), for [the purpose
of] looking who it is, began to drive this very person backwards.
Having heard this very sound, and having said, "Something is coming to
happen in the country," an elephant-keeper who looked after a hundred
tusk elephants, having sent off the elephants to their food and having
become afraid, was looking about. Through that very despondency [which
he felt] that some danger was coming to arrive at this very village,
he said, "I must go to some other quarter"; and folding up the cloth
in which he was dragging (= carrying) them, and in which were the
whole hundred tusk elephants, he bolted.
Then having gone to an outer open place, and having unfastened the
cloth, when he looked [inside it], only the two white lice called
Gourd and Ash-pumpkin were [there], having eaten the whole hundred
tusk elephants.
North-western Province.
Nonsense stories such as this are rather unusual in the East. There is
one in No. 29, vol. i, and an Indian one is quoted after it. No. 130
in this vol. is another Sinhalese variant, and No. 263 in vol. iii,
is also a tale of this type.