The foolish tiger was now frightened half to death and called to the hare: "O friend, I have treated you badly in trying to kill you. Do not be angry and take revenge on me, but take compassion on my terrible condition, and graciously tell me how to escape this danger, and I swear that I will never try to harm you more."
It was the hare's turn to laugh now, but she only laughed quietly to herself, for she was afraid the tiger would hear her, then she said, "Down here our lord's slave is quite safe. If our lord descends, he too will be safe," and before the hare had hardly finished, the cowardly tiger made a jump for the hole the hare had made and joined her at the bottom of the trap.
But the hare was not out yet and she began to plan how she could get out herself and yet keep the tiger in. At last a happy thought struck her. She sidled up to the tiger and began to tickle him in the ribs. The tiger squirmed and twisted first one way and then the other, first to one side and then to the other; at last he could stand it no longer and catching the hare he threw her out of the trap and she landed on solid ground.
As soon as the hare found she was safe, she began to call at the top of her voice: "O men, come! come! I, the hare have deceived the tiger and he is at the bottom of the trap. O men, come! I, the hare call you. Bring your spears and guns; bring your swords, and kill the tiger that I have tricked into entering the trap."
At first the men did not believe the hare, for they did not think that an animal so small as the hare could deceive the tiger, but then they also knew that the hare was very clever and had much wisdom, so they brought their spears and their guns, their swords and their sticks, and killed the tiger in the trap.
Thus did the hare prove that though small she was full of wisdom, and although the tiger was bigger, stronger, and fiercer than she, yet she, through her wisdom, was able to kill him.
THE STORY OF THE TORTOISE.
There was once a man who had two wives. Now as everybody knows it is always the chief wife that the husband loves best, while the other instead of being Mae Long, is only Mae Noi, and this often causes jealousy and trouble in the family. It was so in this case, especially as the chief wife did not have a son to add to her dignity. They each had a daughter, the name of the chief wife's child was Nang Hsen Gaw, and that of the other Nang E.
One day the husband of these women went to the lake to fish. He caught a large number of shell fish and put them on the shore for his wives to bring home. The younger took her share of the load, but, being very hungry, she ate them all. The mother of Nang Hsen Gaw, however, was not greedy like the other woman, and so she put all the fish that were left into her bag and began to trudge slowly toward the house.