Singalamba.
Singalamba was a hunter. One day he went hunting in the forest with his son. He did not kill anything, so he killed his son. After drying his son’s flesh in the sun, he tied it up in bundles and went home. On the road home he heard a bird singing this song: “Look at this man who has eaten his son, when I get to the village I will tell them the meat is human flesh—Singalamba has eaten his son.” Singalamba threw sticks at the bird and killed it; he then lit a fire and burnt it up. Further along the road he heard another bird singing the same song. He threw sticks at it again, but this time he missed and the bird flew on to the village. When it got there it perched on the roof of Singalamba’s hut and sang the same song. When his wife heard the song she asked Singalamba if the meat were the flesh of her son, but he said, “No, our son has gone with meat to his grandmother.” Then the woman sent to ask her mother if the little boy had arrived with the meat. Her mother sent back word that the boy had never come at all. So the woman again accused her husband of killing his son, and at last he confessed. Then the people were very angry at being deceived, and his wife took all her things and left him and went away home, and never came back to him again. The man soon after died.