Being a handful merely, the Bush Lark Hen
Got a tusker killed. Was it right, O Hen? [355]
North-western Province.
According to a variant from Uva, the nest of the bird, containing its
two young ones, fell on the path on which the elephants passed. The
bird begged them to be careful, and not to tread on them, but the king
of the elephants deliberately trampled on the young birds. With the
help of the crow, the blue-fly, and the frog, the elephant was killed,
and the bird then strutted about on its dead body.
With regard to the elephant's falling into the pool and being unable
to get out, the very thing occurred during a severe drought in the
North-western Province in 1877. At a small pool in the upper part of a
low rock in the forest, a few miles from Maha-Uswaewa, my station at
that time, a female elephant and her young one fell into the water,
and were unable to escape because of the steep smooth sides. When
I heard of it I sent an overseer with some men, to feed them and
release them by throwing in a quantity of branches. This succeeded
better than we anticipated; by mounting on the heap of branches they
managed to escape during the night, so that we did not capture them as
we intended. When the narrator of the folk-story described the pool as
being "like a tunnel," he doubtless meant a vertical tunnel or shaft,
having steep sides up which the elephant could not ascend.
In The Jataka, No. 357 (vol. iii, p. 115), this folk-tale is given,
with an evident addition at the beginning, so as to adapt it for
service as illustrating the goodness of the Bodhisatta, and the
wickedness of Devadatta, his rival. The Bodhisatta, as the leader
of a vast herd of elephants, sheltered a quail's young ones under
his body until his herd had passed. Then came a "rogue" elephant
(Devadatta) and wilfully trampled on them. The quail got a crow,
a blue-fly, and a frog to mislead and destroy the animal. The crow
pecked its eyes out, the fly laid its eggs in the sockets, and the
frog induced the blinded animal to fall over a precipice below which
it croaked. This story being illustrated in the carvings at Bharahat
must be of earlier date than 250 B.C.
In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, a South Indian version, the
same story is given, the bird being a kind of large lark, according
to the Abbé's note. When the bird's eggs were broken, the jackal
summoned a crow, a gadfly, and a frog, and went with them in search
of the elephant. The crow pecked its eyes, the gadfly entered one
of its ears, the frog sprang into an adjoining well and croaked as
loudly as possible. The elephant, rushing in search of water in which
it might escape from its tormentors, jumped or fell into the well.
In the Tota Kahani (Small), p. 204, a pair of
birds--"Sugar-eaters"--made a nest in a tree against which an elephant
rubbed its back, the shaking thus caused making the eggs fall out
of the nest. One of the birds, determined to be revenged, consulted
a bird which had a long bill, a bee, and a frog, and obtained their
assistance. The bee intoxicated the elephant by its "ravishing hum,"
the bird pecked out its eyes, and the frog enticed it to a deep pit
into which it fell.