When they had put them to the door, having descended to the path on the journey on which they are going, the man who did not put on the hat says, “[The people] not seeing you two [wearing it] and your putting on of that hat, can you go and look at the power of the hat, stupids both? If you want, you can look for yourselves [this] evening. Give me that hat. In the evening, at the place where they eat food I will show you the power of the hat.”
Having said [this], the man having gone in the evening [after] putting on the hat, to the place where they eat food, in the very first manner they ate and drank. Having been talking and talking, they say, “Well, we are going.”
When they said it, “Having given the money for what you ate, go,” they said.
Then these three persons, whence are they to give the money? Many a time (bohoma kalak) having asked for the money, while they were there without speaking, the men having well beaten these three persons put them out of the eating-house.
The three persons that day’s day having eaten blows three times, in much distress each one comes to his own house. In not many days, on account of these blows that they ate, and through sorrow at the loss of their goods, the end of the lives of the three persons was reached.
The Three-cornered Hatter having gone away taking the goods of these three persons, and having eaten and drunk in happiness, [at last] he died. For their making the Three-cornered Hatter’s bull the goat, taking the goods of these three he also destroyed the lives of the three persons.
Western Province.
In the Hitōpadēśa, a well-known form of the first incident occurs. Three rogues, seeing a Brāhmaṇa carrying home a goat on his shoulder for sacrifice, sat down under three trees at some distance apart on the road. As the man came up, the first rogue said, “O Brāhmaṇa, why dost thou carry that dog on thy shoulder?” “It is not a dog,” said the Brāhmaṇa, “it is a goat for sacrifice,” and he went on. When the second rogue asked the same question, the Brāhmaṇa put down the goat, looked at it, returned it to his shoulder, and resumed his journey. When the third man inquired in the same way, the Brāhmaṇa threw down the goat and went home without it, the rogues of course taking it to eat. This story is given in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 68, with the difference that first one man spoke to the Brāhmaṇa, then two men, and lastly three.
In Indian Nights’ Entertainment (Swynnerton), p. 106, when a foolish man was passing through a village driving a buffalo that he had bought, some men asked him where he got the ram; and as the whole of them insisted that it was a ram he left it with them through fear of his brother’s anger at his buying a ram instead of a buffalo.