So they told her that her son was to die that night and that Chando had sent them to take away his spirit:  all they could do was to let her come too, and see the place to which her son’s spirit was going.  The mother thought that this would be a consolation to her, so she went with them.  When they arrived in the spirit world they told the Brahman’s wife to wait for them by a certain house in which dwelt her son’s wife; and they took the boy to Chando.  Presently they brought him back to the house in which his wife dwelt and near which his mother was waiting and she overheard the following conversation between the boy and his wife.  The wife said “Have you come for good this time, or must you again go back to the world?”

“I have to go back once more.”

“And how will you manage to return again here?”

“I shall ask for the dust of April and May and if it is not given to me I shall cry myself to death; and if that fails, I shall cry for a toy winnowing fan; and if they give me that, then I will cry for an elephant and if that fails then on my wedding day there will be two thorns in the rice they give me to eat and they will stick in my throat and kill me.  And if that does not come to pass, then, when I return home after the wedding, a leopard will kill a cow and I shall run out to chase the leopard and I shall run after it, till I run hither to you.”

“When you come back,” said his wife, “bring me some of the vermilion they use in the world” and the boy promised.

The messengers then took the Brahman’s wife home, and shortly afterwards the boy was born again.  His mother had carefully guarded the memory of all that she had heard in the other world; and when the child asked for the dust and the winnowing fan and the elephant, she at once gratified his desires.  So the boy grew up, and his wedding day arrived.  His mother insisted on accompanying him to the bride’s house, and when the rice was brought for the bride and bridegroom to eat together, she asked to be allowed to look at it first, and on examining it pulled out the the two thorns; and then her son ate it unharmed.  But when the wedding party returned home and the ceremony of introducing the bride to the house was being performed, word was brought that a leopard had killed one of the cows; at once the bridegroom ran out in pursuit; but his mother followed him and called out, “My son, your wife told you to take her some of the vermilion of this world; here is some that I have brought, take it with you.”  At this her son stopped and asked her to explain what she meant; then she told him all and he went no more in pursuit of the leopard:  so he stayed and grew up and lived to a good old age.

CVI.  The Speaking Crab.

There was once a farmer who kept a labourer and a field woman to do the work of the farm; and they were both very industrious and worked as if they were working on their own account and not for a master.