TORTOISE. Because King Crab was trailing his three-edged pike.
KING CRAB. Because Crayfish was shouldering his lance.
CRAYFISH. Because Otter was coming down to devour my children.
Thus the cause of the death of the otter’s children is traced to the otter himself.
Another Far-Eastern story from Laos (French Indo-China), entitled “Right and Might” (Fleeson, 27), is worth notice:—
A deer, frightened by the noise of an owl and a cricket, flees through the forest and into a stream, where it crushes a small fish almost to death. The fish complains to the court; and the deer, owl, cricket, and fish have a lawsuit. In the trial comes out this evidence: As the deer fled, he ran into some dry grass, and the seed fell into the eye of a wild chicken, and the pain caused by the seed made the chicken fly up against a nest of red ants. Alarmed, the red ants flew out to do battle, and in their haste bit a mongoose. The mongoose ran into a vine of wild fruit, and shook several pieces of it on the head of a hermit, who sat thinking under a tree. The hermit then asked the fruit why it fell, and the fruit blamed the mongoose; mongoose blamed ants; ants blamed chicken; chicken blamed seed; seed blamed deer; deer blamed owl. “O Owl!” asked the hermit, “why didst thou frighten the deer?” The owl replied, “I called but as I am accustomed to call; the cricket, too, called.” Having heard the evidence, the judge says, “The cricket must replace the crushed parts of the fish and make it well,” as he, the cricket, called and frightened the deer. Since the cricket is smaller and weaker than the owl or the deer, he had to bear the penalty.
[1] Mangla, big land-crabs.
[2] Cagang, small land-crabs.
[3] Bataktak, non-edible frogs.