As the man ate he threw down the bones and as he threw them the tiger caught them in its mouth; and after a time the man noticed that he did not hear the bones strike the ground; so he looked down quietly and saw the tiger; then he was very frightened for he thought that when he could no longer keep the tiger quiet by throwing down bits of meat, the tiger would spring up unto the platform and eat him.

At last a thought struck him and he drew the head of his hatchet off the handle and put it in the fire till it became red-hot; and meanwhile he kept the tiger quiet by throwing down pieces of meat.  Then when the axe head was ready he picked it out of the fire and threw it down; the tiger caught it as it fell and roared aloud with pain; its tongue and palate and throat were so burnt that it died.

Thus the man saved himself from the tiger and whether the story be true or no, it is known to all Santals.

CXLV.  The Goala’s Daughter.

There was once a man of the Goala caste who had an only daughter and she grew up and was married, but had no child; and after twenty years of married life she gave up all hope of having any.  This misfortune preyed on her mind and she fell into a melancholy.  Her parents asked her why she was always weeping and all the answer she would give was “My sorrow is that I have never worn clothes of “Dusty cloth” and that is a sorrow which you cannot cure.”  But her father and mother determined to do what they could for their daughter and sent servants with money into all the bazars to buy “Dusty cloth”.  The shopkeepers had never heard of such an article so they bought some cloth of any sort they could get and brought it to the Goala; when he offered it to his daughter she thanked him and begged him not to waste his money: 

“You do not understand” said she—­“what I mean by “Dusty cloth.”  God has not given it to me and no one else can; what I mean by ’Dusty cloth’ is the cloth of a mother made dusty by the feet of her child.”  Then her father and mother understood and wept with her, saying that they would do what man could do but this was in the hands of God; and they sang:—­

“Whatever the child of another may suffer, we care not:  But our own child, we will take into our lap, even when it is covered with dust.”

CXLVI.  The Brahman’s Clothes.

There was once a Brahman who had two wives; like many Brahmans he lived by begging and was very clever at wheedling money out of people.  One day the fancy took him to go to the market place dressed only in a small loin cloth such as the poorest labourers wear and see how people treated him.  So he set out but on the road and in the market place and in the village no one salaamed to him or made way to him and when he begged no one gave him alms.  He soon got tired of this and hastened home and putting on