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From Fables & Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest, Collected and Translated by Walter Skeat, M.A., Illustrated by F. H. Townsend; Cambridge: At the University Press; 1901; pp. 20-21, 78.


20

THE TIGER GETS HIS DESERTS.a

A TIGER which had been caught in a trap seeing a man, begged to be released. The man said to the Tiger, “If I let you out of the trap will you promise not to attack me?” “Certainly,” said the Tiger, and the man therefore let the Tiger go, but the moment the Tiger was loose it sprang upon the man and caught him. At this the man begged the Tiger to wait until he had enquired how the law stood with reference to their contract, and the Tiger agreed to do so. The man and the Tiger therefore set out together; and on coming to a Road the man said, “O Road, Road, is it lawful to requite evil for good, or good for good only?” “The Road replied, “I do good to mankind, but they requite me with evil, defiling (my surface) as they go.” Then they came to a Tree, of which the man asked the same question. The Tree replied, 21 “I do good to mankind, but they requite me with evil, lopping off my branches and cutting me down.” At the last they came to the Mouse-deer and the man made the same enquiry as before. The Mouse-deer replied, “I must really go into the question thoroughly before I answer it; let us go back together to the trap.”

Black and white pen and ink drawing by F. H. Townsend, of a caged snarling tiger, with a man in a plaid sarong looking at him outside of it. A small mouse-deer is perched on the top edge of the cage and is looking down at the tiger.

V.  “On reaching the trap, he requested the Tiger to ‘Step inside’.”

On reaching the trap, he requested the Tiger to “Step inside,” and the Tiger entering the trap, the Mouse-deer let down the door of the trap, and exclaimed, “Accursed Brute, you have returned evil for good and now you shall die for it.” He then called in the neighbours and had the Tiger killed.





Tail-piece: Black and white woodcut of a Mouse-deer.





[78] Notes.

a  The Tiger gets his deserts.

As my friend Mr R. J. Wilkinson points out, this tale occurs in the Hikayat Gul Bakhtiyar. It was collected in Ulu Kedah (Siong).





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