The Jackal asked, “What wilt thou obtain for the dancing?”
The tom-tom beater said, “I receive presents and the like.”
Then the Jackal said, “I will give thee a present better than money. It is owing to thy good luck that thou hast come this way. I am a Dēvatāwā (deity) who is guarding his own treasure here. If I am to give thee the treasure, split one eye (end) of the tom-tom which is in thy hand, and having filled it with water and brought it here, pour it on this Elephant.”
After that, the tom-tom beater having plucked out the eye of the tom-tom, filling it with water brought it, and poured it on the Elephant’s dried up carcase. The Jackal, also, sitting inside it, worked and worked it into the skin with its muzzle. Having made the skin pliable it sprang out, and went away.
When this man looked inside, no deity was there, but there were many maggots. So the man, taking his broken tom-tom, went home.
In a few days afterwards, a rain having fallen, the Elephant’s carcase floated, and went down into the water-course. From the water-course it passed down to the stream. A flock of crows covered the carcase. As they were going eating and eating the dead body, it descended into the river, and from the river it passed down to the great sea. There the skin having rotted began to fall to the bottom. After the crows had looked [around], there was not even a tree [to be seen], and before they were able to fly to a place where there were trees their wings were broken, and they died.
Washerman. North-western Province.
A variant related in another village is nearly the same. Some tom-tom beaters passing the Elephant’s carcase were accosted by the Jackal, to whom they replied that they were going to “a pōya tom-tom beating,” that is, one given on the Buddhist sabbath, at the quarter of the moon. When he inquired what profit they would get from it, they stated that they would receive cakes and milk-rice. “You don’t want cakes and milk-rice,” he said, “I will give you gold. Bring water to this Elephant’s carcase.” They did so, breaking open the “eyes” of their tom-toms for the purpose, and the Jackal escaped.
The story concludes: “For the tom-tom beaters there was neither gold, nor cakes and milk-rice. Having broken their tom-toms, lamenting and lamenting they went to their village.”