The Story of Lichao and His Daughter.
Once upon a time wild pigs damaged a man’s crops very badly, so he went down to hunt them, and wounded one [[188]]with his spear. This he tracked and tracked till he came to the house of Lichao, the old man guardian of wild pigs. There he found two maidens feeding the pig he had wounded. They asked him what he had come for, but he was afraid to tell the truth and say that he was tracking a wild pig that he had wounded, so he replied, “Hearing that there were two beautiful maidens at your house I came to see, hoping that I might take one as my wife.” Then they told him to come another day, so he departed.
When the man came a little later Lichao made his slave-girl put on beautiful ornaments and fine clothes, but his real daughter he made to sit all in rags and dirty in the outside room. But the man was not to be deceived. He loved Lichao’s daughter and would only take her.[24] Now Lichao used to turn into a tiger and eat human flesh. Therefore he set his son-in-law hard tasks, meaning to devour him if he did not fulfil them. But when she knew this the maiden said to him, “Whatever task my father gives you to perform, tell me and I will reveal to you his purpose.” So one day Lichao said to the man, “Go and pick the leaves of kotyoh thorns and koremyoi thorns, and bring them without a single leaf being torn and without a single scratch on your body. If you do this I will let you depart with my daughter.” Then the girl said to her husband,[25] “If you come home with the slightest scratch on your body, or with a single leaf torn, my father will devour you.” So her husband went and picked the leaves without a single one being torn and without scratching his body in the least, and rolled them into a very tight bundle and brought and gave them to Lichao. Then Lichao said, “Only that amount will not be enough for us,” but when he opened the [[189]]bundle to look, the leaves covered all the ground in front of his house.
A few days later Lichao said, “If you can catch and tie up one of my pigs alone I will let you take my daughter and go,” and with these words gave him a length of unsplit cane. Then the man fell to thinking how he could catch one of the pigs, for they were wild pigs; and his wife said to him, “If you cannot catch a pig my father will devour you.” At last he caught a pig, and his wife beat the cane on the ground to fray it and gave it to him. Thus holding the pig with one hand he pulled off strips of cane with the other and bound the pig fast. Then Lichao let him take his daughter and go.
So the girl came to her husband’s house. But there she could get no human flesh to eat, and soon became so weak and thin that she could not work. One day her husband said to her, “Why are you so weak and thin?” To which his wife replied, “I am thin and weak because I cannot get the food which my parents used to give me.” Then when her husband asked what her parents used to give her to eat she replied, “I will send you to fetch a parcel of meat wrapped in leaves from my parents’ house. But bring it straight here. Do not open it and look to see what is inside.” So he went, and his wife’s parents gave him some pieces of human flesh wrapped up in leaves. This he brought straight home to his wife without opening the leaves to look to see what was inside, and when she ate it it made her as plump and strong as ever. But in a day or two, because she could get no more human flesh to eat, she again became so thin and weak that she could not work. Then she spoke to her husband again and told him to go and fetch some more meat from her parents’ house. Now her husband was determined to open the bundle and see what kind of meat it was that made his wife get well again when she was so thin and weak that she could not work. But Lichao sent a little bird to go back with him so that he should not open the parcel of human flesh on the way. When the man fingered the parcel which Lichao had given him, having it in his heart to open it, the little bird said to him, “If you [[190]]open it I shall tell my father; if you open it I shall tell my father.” So he did not open it and look inside. But when he had given the parcel of meat to his wife he went and hid and watched quietly to see what kind of meat her father had given him to bring. Now it was nothing but human fingers tied up in leaves that her father had given him to bring. And his wife undid the leaves and roasted the fingers lightly in the fire and ate them one after another. Now when he saw this her husband was much troubled and said, “What meat have your parents sent you? What meat is that you are eating?” But she said, “Nay, I will not tell you. You will only be troubled at heart and filled with fear.” But he said, “I shall not be afraid. Tell me.” Then his wife said, “I shall turn into a tiger. When I go about the house showing my fangs and roaring you must slip a basket over me. If you cannot slip a basket over me I shall devour even you.” With these words she turned into a tiger, and her husband tried to cover her with a basket but could not, so she caught and ate him. That is the end of the story.
The Girl who Married a Tiger.
A woman one day went down to her field to fetch some vegetables. She saw a fine gourd there and was just going to pick it, when a tiger saw her and said, “That is my gourd. Why were you going to pick it? I shall kill you.” With these words he caught her, but the woman, who was about to become a mother, said, “Do not kill me, and I will give you my baby when it is born,” so the tiger let her go. In due time a daughter was born to the woman. When the tiger heard of this he kept asking the woman if her child was born yet, till at last she told the tiger that it had been born. Soon the tiger asked her if her daughter was strong enough to fetch firewood and water yet, and whether she was old enough to be married. But the woman kept putting him off by saying that her daughter was not yet old enough to carry wood and water and was too young to marry; till at last she saw that she must keep the bargain [[191]]she had made, and told the tiger that the girl was old enough to work as his wife. But as she sat weaving a cloth for her daughter to wear on her wedding-day she was overcome with grief when she thought how her child would surely be killed and eaten by the tiger, and her tears fell fast on the cloth she was making. Her husband, too, was sad as he worked at a basket he was making for his daughter to carry when she went to her husband’s house, and his tears fell fast on the basket. When the girl saw this she said, “Why are you crying, mother?” and her mother answered, “I poked myself in the eye with my bobbin.” To her father, too, the girl said, “Why are you crying, father?” And her father replied, “I poked myself in the eye with a slip of bamboo.” Then when the day came her parents gave her in marriage to the tiger.
About a year later a little daughter was born to the tiger and his wife. When her mother carried her she never cried, but when her father carried her she cried all the time. So the woman said to the tiger, “Why do you make our daughter cry so much?” The tiger replied, “It is because my beard pricks her.” But one day the woman hid herself and watched, and saw the tiger knock his little daughter’s head “tap, tap” against a hearthstone and lick up the blood which dripped down. When she saw this the woman resolved to run away from the tiger, and said to him, “I am going to fetch some wood. Hold the baby till I come back.” But the tiger said, “I am coming too.” And whenever she asked him to look after the baby while she went to get water, or went to the fields or into the jungle, the tiger always replied, “I am coming too,” and never let her out of his sight. At last one day she asked him to look after the child while she went down to the spring to wash its carrying cloth.[26] So he took the child and she went down to the spring and set a louse and a flea to wash the cloth, “chuck-chuck, chuck-chuck,” while she ran off and made for her parents’ house. The tiger, thinking the noise made by the [[192]]louse and the flea was his wife washing the cloth, kept calling out, “The baby is crying. Come up and nurse it.” But when she did not come up he went down to look for himself, and found his wife gone and the louse and the flea there instead. Then he said, “You would play tricks on me, would you?” and crushed the louse with his thumb-nail, but the flea jumped and got away.