Told on the Pagoda: Tales of Burmah

TOLD ON THE PAGODA
TALES OF BURMAH
TALES OF BURMAH
By Mimosa
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN 1895
All rights reserved.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IN every large tree there lives a Nāt, and it is a custom very strictly adhered to that before any tree can be touched the permission of the spirit must be asked and obtained.
Now a woodman cut down a tree one day without giving the Nāt who resided in it the slightest warning, a proceeding which infuriated the spirit exceedingly, and he determined to be revenged; so, taking upon himself without delay the exact form and likeness of the woodman, he gathered up a bundle of sticks and went in advance of him to his home, in the brief warm gloom that precedes the fall of night. When he reached the hut, that was as bare as a hermit's cell, thatched with dunni leaves, and situated in one of the deepest recesses of the dense sylvan growth, he placed the wood outside and went within. An oil lamp stood on the wooden ledge of the entrance and threw a faint light on all around. The wife of the woodcutter was busy boiling the evening rice, a baby slept in its box-like cradle slung from a beam in the roof; a little boy of five or six sat cutting plaintain leaves.