CHAPTER III.
THE ANIMAL WORLD.
The presence of bats in a house indicates that it will be soon deserted. Medicinal virtues are ascribed to the flesh of monkeys. To look at a slender loris (una hapuluva) brings ill luck and its eyes are used for a love potion. The lion’s fat corrodes any vessel except one of gold; its roar which makes one deaf is raised three times—first when it starts from its den, next when it is well on its way, and last when it springs on its victim. It kills elephants but eats only their brain. The unicorn (kangavêna) has a horn on its forehead with which it pierces the rocks that impede its progress.
If a dog howls or scratches away the earth before a house it presages illness or death; if it walks on the roof, the house will be deserted, if it sleeps under a bed it is a sign of the occupant’s speedy death.
A bear throws sand on the eyes of its victim before pouncing on him, and it does not attack persons carrying rockbine (Galpahura).
When a person is bitten by a mouse, the wound is burnt with a heated piece of gold. A mouse after drinking toddy boasts that it can break up the cat into seven pieces. A kick from a wild rat (valmiyâ) produces paralysis.
The porcupine (ittêvâ) shoots its quills to keep off its antagonists and hunts the pengolin (kebellevâ) out of its home and occupies it himself.
A cheetah likes the warmth of a blaze and comes near the cultivator’s watch fire in the field, calls him by name and devours him; it frequents where peacocks abound; it does not eat the victim that falls with the right side uppermost. Small pox patients are carried away by this animal which is attracted by the offensive smell they emanate; when the cheetah gets a sore mouth by eating the wild herb mîmanadandu, it swallows lumps of clay to allay its hunger; its skin and claws are used as amulets; the female cheetah gives birth only once and has no subsequent intercourse with her mate owing to the severe travail; the cheetah was taught by the cat to climb up a tree but not to climb down; in revenge it always kills its tutor but is reverent enough not to make a meal of the body which it places on an elevated spot and worships. One in a thousand cheetahs has the jaya-revula (lucky side whiskers) which never fails to bring good fortune if worn as an amulet.
The cheetah, the lizard and the crocodile were three brothers, herdsmen, skilled in necromancy; as the animals they were looking after refused to yield milk, the eldest transformed himself into a cheetah, and the evil nature of the beast asserting itself he began to destroy the flock and attack the brothers; the youngest took refuge on a tree transforming himself into a lizard and the other who had the magical books turned himself into a crocodile and jumped into a river; these three have ever since lived in friendship and a person who escapes the crocodile is killed if a lizard urinates on him when sleeping; a crocodile’s victim can free himself by tickling its stomach and trying to take away the books concealed there.
A cat becomes excited by eating the root of the acolypha indica (kuppamêniya) and its bite makes one lean; its caterwauling is unlucky. The grey mungoose bites as an antidote a plant not identified called visakumbha before and after its fight with the cobra; when it finds difficulty in fighting the cobra, it retires to the jungle and brings on its back the king of the tribe, a white animal, by whom or in whose presence the cobra is easily killed.