In a certain country there were a man's eight asses. One of them having
been lost one day, while he was going seeking and looking for it [he
saw] in the night that there was a house near a great jungle. In the
house he heard a talk. After that he halted, and when he is listening
to ascertain what is this talk which he hears, a woman says, "Ane! O
Gods, during this night I indeed am not afraid of either an elephant,
or a bear, or a leopard, or a Yaka; I am only afraid of the Dabukka,"
she said.
The Leopard listening very near there said [to himself], "What is the
Dabukka of which she is afraid, which is greater than the elephant,
and the bear, and the leopard, and the Yaka?" Having become afraid
in his mind he stood on one side, and remained looking [out for it].
Then the man who being without that ass sought for it, saw the
Leopard [in the semi-darkness], and having said, "Is it the ass?" went
running and mounted on the back of the Leopard. Saying, "O ass of the
strumpet's son, why were you hidden last night?" he began to beat the
Leopard. Having thought "Ade! It is this indeed they call the Dabukka,"
through fear it began to run away.
As it was becoming light, that man, perceiving that it was the Leopard,
jumped off its back, and having gone running crept inside a hollow
in a tree.
The Leopard having gone running on and fallen, a Jackal, seeing that
it was panting, asked, "Friend, what are you staying there for as
though you have been frightened?"
"Friend, during the whole of yester-night the Dabukka, having mounted
on my back, drove me about, beating and beating me enough to kill me."
Then the Jackal says, "Though you were afraid of it I indeed am not
afraid. Show me it. Let us go for me to eat up that one," he said.
The Leopard says, "I will not go first," he said.
The Jackal said, "Pull out a creeper, and tying it at your waist tie
[the other end] on my neck," he said.
When they had tied the creeper, after the Jackal went in front near
the tree in which that man stayed, the Leopard said, "There. It is
in the hollow in that tree, indeed," he said.
The Jackal snarled. Then when the man struck the Jackal in the midst
of the mouth his teeth were broken. After that, [both of them],
the Jackal howling and howling, having run off and gone away, when
they were out of breath a Bear came and asked "Friends, what are you
panting for to that extent?"
The Leopard says, "Yester-night the Dabukka killed me. The Jackal
having gone to eat it, when he howled and snarled it broke two [of his]
teeth," he said.
Then the Bear said, "What of your being unable [to kill it]! Let us
go, for me to eat up that one."
The whole three went, the Bear being in front and close to it the
Jackal; the Leopard went behind them. Having gone, they showed the
Bear the place where the man was. The Bear having put its head inside
the hollow in the tree, roared. Then the man seized the hair of its
head fast with his hand. When it was drawing its head back the hair
came out. Then the whole three, speaking and speaking, ran away,
with their teeth chattering and their tails between their legs.
Afterwards the man having descended from the tree to the ground,
came to his village with a party of men.
North-western Province.
In Indian Fairy Tales (Thornhill), p. 227, a tiger heard an old woman
say, "I do not fear the tiger; what I fear is the dripping; when the
rain falls the dripping comes through the thatch and troubles me." The
tiger lay still, dreading the coming of the terrible Dripping. A
washerman whose ass had strayed came there, and thinking he had
found it struck it with his stick and drove it to the village pound,
where he fastened it by the leg, the tiger believing he must be the
Dripping. In the morning it begged for mercy, and was allowed to go
on promising to leave the district and not eat men.
In Old Deccan Days (M. Frere), p. 206, the same story is repeated,
the ass being one belonging to a potter who seized the tiger, beat
and kicked it, rode it home, tied it to a post, and went to bed. Next
day everyone came to see it, and the Raja gave the man great rewards,
and made him a General.
In Indian Nights' Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 211, when a weaver
who had been ordered to kill a tiger was entering his house he
saw it outside. Saying loudly that he was going to kill the tiger,
he added that he did not care for the wet or the tiger, but only
for the dripping of the rain from the roof. The tiger was afraid,
and slunk into an outhouse, the door of which the weaver immediately
shut and locked. Next morning he reported that he had captured it
with his hands, without the use of weapons.
In a Malinka story of Senegambia in Contes Soudanais (C. Monteil),
p. 137, a hare, while its partner, a hyæna, collected firewood, hid
the flesh of a cow that they had killed, in a hollow baobab tree,
the entrance being too small to admit the hyæna. The latter returned
with an ostrich and saw the hare there. The ostrich came forward to
seize it, but when its head was inside the hare slipped a noose over
it and half-choked it. In its struggles the ostrich laid an egg,
which the hyæna immediately devoured. The hare then induced it to
believe that when they were half choked in the same way hyænas laid
much better eggs. The hyæna accordingly inserted its head, and was
noosed and strangled.