The Cake Tree. (Variant b.)
In a certain country there was a house of a Gamarāla, it is said. At that house there were seven children. Out of the seven, the elder six persons having arisen on all days just at daybreak, go to do work in the rice field. The young person for the purpose of learning goes to school.
Having joined with yet [other] children (lamō), the party of children began to go near a house at which a certain Rākshasī dwells at that village. During the time when they are going thus, the Rākshasī who saw these children, from the day on which she saw the children made ready to seize and eat them.
Although she made ready in that manner, through fear because men dwelt in the neighbourhood she did not seize the children. But the Rākshasī being unable to remain without eating the children, thought, “Seizing the children by a certain device, I must employ my daughter, and [after] boiling I must eat them.” Having broken off all the leaves of a tree that was on the road on which the children go to school, and having wrapped strips of white cloth at all places on the tree, and hung cakes and plantains, etc., at all places on the tree, the Rākshasī got into the jungle and waited.
At the time when she is staying thus, the party of children who are going to school, when they approached the root of that tree having seen the tree on which the cakes and plantains had been hung, said, “Look here, Bola; a Cake Tree;” and the whole of them having ascended the tree, plucked the cakes and plantains to the extent to which they had been hung on the tree, and ate them.
That day, except that the Rākshasī had gone into the jungle, she did not come to the place where the children are eating the cakes and plantains. Why? It was through fear that many children having come to the place where she is, at the time when she is seizing them the children having become afraid, and run to that and this hand, when they have told the men they will kill her.
Having thought thus, that day after the whole of the children, plucking the cakes and plantains, went away, the Rākshasī having come from the jungle into the open, arrived at her house, and stayed [there]. On the following day also, as on the former day, at daybreak having gone taking cakes and plantains, and hung them on the tree, she got hid, and remained looking out.
That day, when she is thus, out of that troop of children going to school, the Gamarāla’s child having arisen more towards daybreak than on other days, and hurried, and eaten food, and drunk, and gone in front of the other boys, with the thought that he must pluck the cakes very quickly went that day quite alone. Having gone in that way, he ascended the Cake Tree and began to pluck them. At the time when he is thus plucking them, the Rākshasī having sprung out, quickly taking the bag also, and having come to the bottom of the tree, spoke to the Gamarāla’s boy, and says, “Aḍē! Son, pluck and give me one cake,” she said.
When the Rākshasī said thus, he plucked one and gave it. The Rākshasī having thrown on the ground that bit of cake says, “Anē! Son, the cake fell on the ground. Sand being rubbed on it, I cannot eat it. Give me still one,” she said.