it was wrong to jest when men of weight met to decide a dispute; so they became serious and the she-jackal answered “It is true that I drop dung twice to his once:  there is an order laid on me to do so:  I drop dung once at the same time that he does:  that excrement falls to the ground and stays there:  but the second time the excrement falls into the mouths of the ancestors of those men who take bribes and do injustice to the widow and orphan and when such bribetakers reach the next world they will also have to eat it.  If however they confess their sin and ask pardon of me they will be let off the punishment:  this is the reason why I have been ordered to drop dung twice.”  “Now you have heard what she has to say” put in the he-jackal “what to you think of the explanation?  I hope that there are no such bribetakers among you:  if there are they had better confess at once.”

Then all the villagers who had agreed to take a share of the bribe and had helped to rob the boy of his cow confessed what they had done and declared that the boy should have his cow again, and they fined the thief five rupees.  So Bhagrai and the blacksmith went gladly on their way and the blacksmith soon told all his neighbours of the two wonderful jackals who talked like men and had compelled the villagers to restore the stolen cow.  “Ah” said the boy’s mother “they were not jackals, they were Chando,” When Bhagrai’s uncles heard all this and saw how he and his mother had prospered in spite of the loss of all their property, they became frightened and gave back the land and cattle which they had taken, without waiting for them to be claimed.

XCIII.  The Boy Who Was Changed into a Dog.

Once upon a time there were seven brothers:  the six eldest were married, but the youngest was only a youth and looked after the cattle.  The six married brothers spent their life in hunting and used often to be away from home for one or two months at a time.  Now all their six wives were witches and directly their husbands left home the six women used to climb a peepul tree and ride away on it, to eat men or do some other devilry.  The youngest brother saw them disappear every day and made up his mind to find out what they did.  So one morning he hid in a hollow in the trunk of the peepul tree and waited till his sisters-in-law came and climbed up into the branches:  then the tree rose up and was carried through the air to the banks of a large river, where the women climbed down and disappeared.  After a time they came back and climbed into the tree and rode on it back to the place where it came from.  But as they descended they saw their brother-in-law hiding in the trunk and at first they tried to make him promise not to tell what he had seen, but he swore that he would let his brothers know all about it:  so then they thought of killing him, but in the end the eldest said that this was not necessary and she fetched two iron nails and drove them into the soles of his feet whereupon he at once became a dog.  He could understand all that was said but of course could not speak.  He followed them home and they treated him well and always gave him a regular helping at meals as if he were a human being and did not merely throw him the scraps as if he were a dog:  nor would he have eaten them if they had.