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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. 28-29, 79-80.
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THE TIGER AND THE SHADOW.a
THERE was a “salt-lick” in the jungle to which all the beasts of the forest resorted, but they were greatly afraid by reason of an old Tiger which killed one of them every day.b At length, therefore, P’lando’ the Mouse-deer said to the Tiger, “Why not permit me to bring you a beast every day, to save you from hunting for you food?” The Tiger consented and P’lando’ went off to make arrangement with the beasts. But he could not persuade any of them to go, and after three days he set off, taking nobody with him but Kuwisc the smallest of the Flying Squirrels. On their arrival P’lando’ said to the Tiger, “I could not bring you any of the other beasts because the way was blocked by a fat old Tiger with a Flying Squirrel sitting astride its muzzle.” On hearing this the Tiger exclaimed, “Let us go and find it and drive it
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away.” The three therefore set out, the Flying Squirrel perched upon the Tiger’s muzzle and the Mouse-deer sitting astride upon its hind quarters. On reaching the river, the Mouse-deer pointed to the Tiger’s likeness in the water and exclaimed, “Look there! That is the fat old Tiger that I saw.”
VII. “On hearing this, the Tiger sprang into the river to attack his own shadow, and was drowned immediately.”
On hearing this, the Tiger sprang into the river to attack his own shadow, and was drowned immediately.
a The Tiger and the Shadow.
This tale is from Ulu Kedah. It is an interesting Malay version of our own “Dog and the Shadow.”
b The ‘salt-licks’ of the Malay Peninsula (called Sira in Kedah and Jĕnut in Ulu Pahang) are famous places for big game. They are places where the ground is thickly saturated with natural salts derived usually from the overflowing of hot mineral springs in the vicinity.
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c Kuwis is the smallest of the Malay flying squirrels, and is not much larger than our own common bat.
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