Then when they were far off, the Turtles having seen the Jackals coming, said, “There they are, Bola. Now then, get ready.”
As they were coming near, beating the tom-toms, “Ehe; Kaṭa, kaṭa, kaṭa. Ehe; Kaṭa, kaṭa, kaṭa,” the Turtles having heard all this, all the Turtles began to cry out, “Baka, Baka,” as they came near.
Then, as they came very near, singing “Baka, Baka,” all the Turtles sprang into the pond [and disappeared].
On account of this thing that they did, the Jackals became still more ashamed. “These Cattle-Turtles have cheated us,” they said; and having become angry, went away.
The way the Jackal-artificers called the Turtles to the wedding is good.
Village Vaeddā of Bintaenna.
The first part of this tale is found in the Jātaka story No. 215 (vol. ii, p. 123). In it two Hansas or sacred Geese asked a Turtle to accompany them to their home, a golden cave in the Himālayas. They carried it like the Storks. The Jackal is not introduced at all. Some village children saw the Turtle in the air, and made a simple remark to that effect. The Turtle, wishing to reply, opened its mouth, and was smashed by falling in the King’s court-yard.
In the Panchatantra (Dubois), as well as in a variant of the North-western Province of Ceylon, and elsewhere in the island, the story does not end at this point, but with the escape of the Turtle after the Jackal had soaked it in the water.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 37, the story ends with the fall of the Turtle, which was being carried to a lake in which there was water. In this case, as in the Jātaka story, the point to be illustrated only required the Turtle to fall and be killed.