When he arrived he was duly welcomed and after some conversation he told his daughter that he must return the same day; she said “All right, but wait till it gets hot.” (The father understood this to be a metaphorical way of saying “Wait till the dinner is cooked.”) But the daughter was determined not to cook the rice while her father was there:  so they sat talking and when the sun was high the daughter went into the yard and felt the ground with her foot and finding it scorching she said “Now father, it is time for you to be going:  it has got hot” Then the old man understood that she was not going to give him his dinner.  So he took his stick and got up to go.

Now the son-in-law was a great hunter and that day he had killed and brought home a peacock; as he was leaving, the father said “My daughter, if your husband ever brings home a peacock I advise you to cook it with mowah oil cake; that makes it taste very nice.”  So directly her father had gone, the woman set to work and cooked the peacock with mowah oil cake; but when her husband and children began to eat it they found it horribly bitter and she herself tasted it and found it uneatable; then she told them that her father had made fun of her and made her spoil all the meat.  Her husband asked whether she had cooked rice for her father; and when she said “No” he said that this was the way in which he had punished her; he had had nothing to eat and so he had prevented their having any either; she should entertain all visitors and especially her father.  So they threw away the meat and had no dinner.

CXXVI.  The Backwards and Forwards Dance.

There was once a Santal who owed money to a money-lender:  the lender went to dun him every day but as he had nothing to pay with he used to hide in the jungle and as he had no warm clothes he used to light a fire to warm himself by; and when the fire was low he would sit near it and when it blazed up he would move back from it.  When the money-lender asked the man’s wife where he was, she always replied “He is dancing the ‘Backwards and Forwards’ dance.”  The money-lender got curious about this; and said that he would like to learn the dance.  So one evening the Santal met him and offered to teach him the dance but, he said he must be paid and what would the money-lender give?  The money-lender said that he would give any thing that was asked; so the Santal called two witnesses and before them the money-lender promised that if the Santal taught him the dance he would let him off his debt.

The next morning the Santal took the money-lender to the jungle and told him to take off his clothes as they would dance with only loin cloths on; then he lit a heap of straw and they sat by it warming themselves; and he purposely made only a small fire at first.  Then the money-lender asked when they were going to begin to dance but the Santal said “Let us warm ourselves first, I am very cold,” so