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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. 1-2, 73-74.

FABLES AND FOLK TALES

FATHER ‘LIME-STICK’ AND THE
FLOWER-PECKER.^a

OLD Father Lime-stick once limed a tree for birds and caught a Flower-pecker (a small bird about as big as one’s thumb). He was just about to kill and eat it when the bird cried out, “O Grandfather, surely you are not going to eat me? Why, flesh, feathers and all, I am no bigger than your thumb!” “What?” said the old man, “do you expect me then to let you go?” “Yes,” said the bird, “only let me go, and I will fetch you such a talisman as never was — a Bezoar-stone as big as a coconut^b and worth at least a thousand.”^c Said the old man, “Do you really mean it?” “Really, I do,” replied the bird. “Just let me go, and I’ll bring it to you.” Then (on being released) he 2 flew off and perched on a tree, and began to preen his feathers, to get rid of the bird-lime. And presently the old man said, “Where has that bird got to? Bird, where is the Bezoar-stone you promised to bring me, the one that was worth at least a thousand?” “Out-on-you,” was the reply, “this is really too ridiculous. Just think of me with my body as big as your thumb, carrying a Bezoar-stone as big as a coconut! It really is too absurd, Why, have I even got the strength to lift it?” At this the old man held his peace. “Well,” continued the bird, “you will gain nothing by repenting that you set me free. Only remember in future not to undertake an affair quite out of keeping with your own powers. Neither try to get your arms round a tree too big for your embrace, nor attempt to climb one higher than your strength permits you.”

73 Notes.

^a  Father Lime-stick and the Flower-pecker.

This tale, which appears in England as early as the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 167), was told me by a Kelantan Malay named Che Busu, one of the following of the Raja Muda of Patāni. The liming of birds as practised by the Malays is effected by cutting deep notches in the boughs of any tree in which birds have been observed to habitually settle, the operator inserting in each notch a short stick thickly coated with viscid sap obtained from certain trees in the jungle. When the birds have been caught these lime-sticks can be removed and used afresh in a different locality, this being much less trouble than it would be to lime the twigs of the tree itself.

Some of these lime-sticks in the Cambridge Museum are about 2 ft. in length, and of rather less than the thickness of the little finger.

The Malay name of the old man in the present instance is ‘To’Să-gĕtah,’ the Malay name of the bird being ‘Sĕpah putri’ or the ‘Princess’s betel-quid,’ a name which is derived from another legend. “The Owl fell in love with the Moon-Princess and asked her to marry him. This she promised to do, if he would allow her to finish her quid of betel undisturbed, but before finishing it she threw it down to the earth, where it took the form of the small bird in question. The Princess then 74 requested the Owl to make search for it, but as, of course, he was unable to find it, the proposed match fell through. This is the reason why the owl, to quote the Malay proverb, ‘sighs longingly to the moon,’ and is the type of the desponding lover.” Malay Magic, 102.

^b  A Bezoar-stone as big as a coconut.  These Bezoar-stones are concretions obtained from the bodies of various animals, especially the porcupine and the monkey. Extraordinary magical virtues are ascribed to them. They are usually about the size of a small filbert (more or less), and their value, all else being equal, would be in proportion to their size. In the Gesta Romanorum (above referred to), it is a “Pearl bigger than the egg of an ostrich.”

^c  worth at least a thousand: i.e, a thousand dollars, the dollar being about two shillings.

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