“We offered to aid you,” retorted the giants, “but you sit and watch while we do all. Had you done your part, we would have done ours. Now, you shall labor, and we, from our high mountain, will laugh at you.”
Thereupon they left the work and sought their homes, and wearily did the men of the plains dig the earth, carrying it in small loads into one place to build the mound, and sadly did they look toward the East, where they could see the mountain-top the giants had carried such a distance to them, and most bitterly did they repent not having done their share.
The temple is builded now, and from afar the [67 ] people can see the gleam of the spire when the eye of day first opens in the East, or closes in the West, and, to this day the mountain-top lies there far distant from the mountain range and equally far distant from the city of the plains, and the people point it out to strangers, saying, “If you ask aid from others, it is well to put your own heart into the work.”
Cheating the Priest
Upon a time a man and his wife went a day’s journey from their village to the bazaar to sell their wares, and it fell upon the day of their return that it rained heavily, and as they hurried along the highway, they sought shelter from the head priest of a temple. He, however, would not even let them enter. They begged to be permitted to sleep in the sheltered place at the head of the stairs, but this also the priest refused. Angered, they went under the temple and there rested.
When the priest had lain down on his mat in the room just over the place where the man and his wife were hidden, he heard the man say to his wife, “It will be good to be again with our [68 ] young and beautiful daughter. I trust all is well with her.”
Having heard these words, the priest arose hastily and called, “Come up, good people, and sleep in the temple. Here, too, are mats to rest upon.” And, as they talked of their beautiful daughter, the priest asked, “When I am out of the temple, released from my vows, will you give me your daughter to wife?”