But they could tell him nothing.  Then he came to a thorn bush, with a number of rags fluttering on it, and he sang:—­

    “Ho, ho, plum bush,
    Have you seen the Jhades jogi
    On this road?”

And the plum tree said “The Jhades jogi brought your mother this way, and I did my best to stop them.  If you don’t believe me see the rags as a proof.”  And he put his hand on the tree and went on.  And then he came to a squirrel which was chattering in a banyan tree, and he sang:—­

    “Ho, ho, squirrel,
    Have you seen the Jhades jogi
    On this road?”

And the squirrel said “I have been calling you since yesterday.  The jogi brought your mother this way, go on and you will overtake them.  And your father and uncles also came this road.”  The boy was cheered by this news and he put his hand on the squirrel’s back and said “You are a fine fellow to give me this clue” and the marks of his fingers were imprinted on the squirrel and that is why squirrels have striped backs to the present day.

Then he went on and came to a river and he decided to sit and have his lunch there; he did not know that his father and uncles had been turned into stones in that very place, but as he sat and ate, his eyes were opened and he saw the stones weeping, and he recognised them, and he dropt a little food on each that they might eat, and pursued his way, until he came to the Jhades jogi’s kingdom, and he went to the old woman who kept the Jogi’s garden and asked to be allowed to stay with her and help her to make the garlands.

One day when he had made a garland, he tied to it a ring which had belonged to his mother.  So when the old woman took the garland to the Rani, the Rani wondered why it weighed so heavy, and when she examined it she saw her own ring.  Then she asked the old woman who had tied the ring there, and when she heard that a strange boy had come, she at once ran to him and recognised her own son.

Then they planned how they could kill the Jhades jogi and escape!  The mother agreed to find out in what lay the life of the Jogi.  So she questioned him and worried him till he told her that his life lay in a certain pumpkin vine.  Then the boy went and cut down the pumpkin vine, but the Jogi did not die; then the Rani worried and worried the Jogi till he told her that his life lay in his sword; then the boy stole the sword and burnt it in a fire of cowdung, but still the Jogi did not die; then his mother again worried and plagued the Jogi till at last he told her the truth and said “In the middle of the sea is a cotton tree, and on the tree are two Bohmae birds; if they are killed I shall die.”

So the boy set off to the sea and on the road he met three old women and one had a stool stuck to her back, and one had a bundle of thatching grass stuck on her head, and the third had her foot stuck fast to a rice-pounder, and they asked him where he was going, and he told them, “to visit the shrine of the Bohmae bird”:  then they asked him to consult the oracle and find out how they could be freed from the things which were stuck fast to them, and he promised to do so.