“Throw down thy two ears,” he said. He lifted up and threw down the two winnowing trays.
“Show me one eye,” he said. Then having put down the tom-tom at the corner of a plank on which there was plaster he showed him it.
He told him to tap on his belly, and show him it. Then, pressing one hand on one side (end) of the tom-tom, at the other side (end) he made a noise, “Bāhāk, bāhāk.”
Then the Rākshasa having become [more] frightened, standing up holding the Rākshasī’s hand, and looking for the road so as to run off, told him to cry out.
Then Three-cubits thinks, “When he is running away now, he will run off taking with him younger sister.” Having become afraid of it, taking a red ants’ nest softly to the end of the boards, he broke and threw down the red ants’ nest on the Rākshasa’s head. Then the Rākshasa having let go the hand of the Rākshasī, began to scratch his head and body in all places.
At that very time having put the other red ants’ nest into the two ears of the ass, the three persons began to prick it with the porcupine quills. Then when it began to give hundreds of brays (būruwē beri), the Rākshasa having become thoroughly frightened, said, “I don’t want you below”; and having abandoned even the Rākshasī, crying “Hū,” and breaking through the fence also and upsetting the village, on account of the noise of the ass and the cunning of the three persons and the power of the red ants, he ran away.
Then the elder brother, and the younger brothers, the three persons, taking their younger sister, went to their village.
Kumbukkan, Eastern Province.
In a variant (a) of the North-western Province the persons were a youth termed One-span (Ek-wiyatā), his two elder brothers, and his elder and younger sisters. A quarrel having arisen among them, One-span and his younger sister went off alone. While they were in the midst of a forest a Rākshasī carried off the girl during her brother’s temporary absence, so he returned home, informed the others, and he and his two brothers set off in search of her. The elder sister having been angry with him, gave One-span some cold boiled rice to take with him, and to the others warm rice. When the two opened their bag of warm rice they heard worms or grubs (panuwō) that were in it making a sound, “Mini, mini,” as they gnawed at it, so they begged their brother to share his cold rice with them. He did so, and afterwards when they objected to take and carry along with them a coconut tree, a palmira tree, an elephant calf (aet-wassek), and two or three large black ants (kaḍiyō), on each occasion he demanded the return of the rice and curry they had eaten. They found their younger sister at “a very large tiled house,” and she hid them and the young elephant and the other things in the loft. The Rākshasī returned, said, “There is a smell of fresh human flesh,” and afterwards was frightened as in the story given above, and ran away.