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. 30-32, 80.
Next day they each set out and met upon the boundary between the Cleared Land and the Young Bush. And when they charged down upon each other, the Bull of the Young Bush was slain by the Bull of the Clearing, the Mouse-deer sitting upon an ant-hill to excite them to the combat.
VIII. “The Bull of the Young Bush was slain by the Bull of the Clearing, the Mouse-deer sitting upon an ant-hill to excite them to the combat.”
31But during the battle the white ants extended their burrows into the Mouse-deer’s back as he sat on the ant-hill, so that he could not get up again. Therefore he said to the survivor, “If you have the strength, Friend Bull, do me the favour to scatter this ant-hill.” At this the Bull of the Clearing scattered the ant-hill with his horns and scampered off (to escape from the ants). So the Mouse-deer cut the throat of the Bull of the Young Bush (according to the Muhammedan rites) and began to flay the skin from the carcase.
At this moment Rīmau the Tiger appeared and said, “Will you share your meat with me?” And the Mouse-deer said, “By all means.” But when he had finished flaying, rain began to fall, and the Mouse-deer ordered the Tiger to cut him some prickly boughs (with which to make a shelter from the rain) — boughs of the “Rīseh,” and boughs of the “Túnggal dūri.” The Tiger did so and slung them across his shoulder to carry them home, but the river bank was very slippery and his shoulders were smeared all over with blood as he kept trying to clamber on to the raft.b
Just then, seeing the Mouse-deer, he asked, 32 “What in the world makes you shiver so, Friend Mouse-deer?” The Mouse-deer replied (in ferocious tones), “I am quivering with anticipation!” and the Tiger, thinking that the Mouse-deer had designs upon himself, became so nervous that he plunged into the river, and left the meat to the Mouse-deer.
1 Sĕladang Chĕrang.
2 Sĕladang B’lūkar.
a Wit wins the day.
This story is new to me; it was told me by a Kelantan Malay.
b he kept trying to clamber on to the raft. In the upper reaches of rivers in many of the East-Coast (Malay) States it is the custom to keep bamboo rafts moored under the steep banks, instead of the fallen tree-trunks which more commonly form the landing-stages of the West-Coast Malays.