Note 3 — V The Cunning Old Man and the Demi

Another Mingrelian version of this story tells that the demi took the old man home, and left him his house, wife and children. As he was going away, the jackal met him, and asked whither he was going. The demi replied that the old man had almost killed him, and he was going to hide himself. The jackal told him to go home, and have no fear of the old man, for it would choke him. The demi tied the jackal to himself, with a stout rope, and went back. The old man met them with the following words: ‘This is splendid, my jackal—thou wast to bring me nine demis, thou hast brought eight already, and this will make the ninth.’ The demi was alarmed, he rushed off, dragging after him the jackal, whom he knocked against twenty trees, and disappeared. The old man stayed in the demi’s house all the days of his life.

Cf. also ‘The Strong Man and the Dwarf,’ p. 147; Sir John Malcolm’s Sketches of Persia, ch. xvi. ‘The Story of Ameen Beg of Ispahan,’ and ‘The Goat and the Lion’ in the Panchatantra.