Part 2 — The Jackal and the Leopard

In a certain country there is a Gamarāla. There is a goat-fold of the Gamarāla’s. At that goat-fold one by one the goats are disappearing during the night. Afterwards the Gamarāla having gone there [to watch for the thief] went to sleep. In the hand of the Gamarāla there was a lump of salt chillies.

Afterwards the Leopard came at night. The Leopard lifting each goat looks at it. Having looked, afterwards having lifted up the Gamarāla [and found he was the heaviest] he took him. Carrying him away he took him to his rock cave. Then the Gamarāla quickly [entered it, and] shut the door. The Leopard then was trying to go into the cave. Having heard the uproar the Jackal Paṇḍitayā came. “What is this, Sapu-flowers’ Minister, you are doing?” he asked.

“In other years I brought goats [and ate them without trouble]. That one having entered the cave has shut the door.”

“You, Sir, having put your tail inside the cave be pleased to wave it,” he said; the Jackal Paṇḍitayā said. “Do not catch hold of the tail,” he said [to the Gamarāla]. “Otherwise, having put thy foot against the wall, and having folded it two-fold or three-fold, hold it [fast],” he said. “Do not jam a little of the golden salt chillies under the tail of the Sapu-flowers’ Minister,” he said.

Then the Gamarāla having seized the tail jammed in the salt chillies. Afterwards the Sapu-flowers’ Minister pulling out his tail bounded away. Having bounded off and gone, he sat down on a flat rock. Afterwards the Jackal Paṇḍitayā asked, “What are you on that flat rock for?”

Again, the Gamarāla, saving his life, went to the village. The Jackal Paṇḍitayā went to the Gamarāla. “What is it, Gamarāla? Couldn’t you kill him?”

“While he was outside how could I, sitting in the cave, kill him?”

“I will tell you a trick for that one,” the Jackal Paṇḍitayā said. Afterwards he said, “You must make a trap for that one,” he said.

“Where shall I make the trap?” [the Gamarāla] asked.

“At the fence of the goat-fold,” he said.

Afterwards he made the trap. The Sapu-flowers’ Minister was noosed in the trap. On the following day the Gamarāla came to look. Having come before the Gamarāla, also the Jackal Paṇḍitayā came near the trap. “Gamarāla, to-day indeed he has been hanged,” he said.

Etana metana tō gasannē

Kambul baeṭa dīpannē

Kanda sewanaṭa aedapannē

“Strike thou there and here a blow;

Knocks upon the cheeks bestow;

Drag him to the hill’s shadow,”

the Jackal Paṇḍitayā said.

Hampottayi tō gannē

Mālu tika maṭa dennē.

Then he said—

“’Tis the skin will be for thee,

The little flesh thou’lt give to me.”

Roḍiyā. North-western Province.