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.

Now, the mother of Nang E was a witch, although no one, of course, knew
it. Being wicked enough to be a witch, she did not hesitate at
committing any other crime, even the most dreadful, and she therefore
made up her mind that she would kill the mother of Nang Hsen Gaw so that
she could be the chief wife. She got home much sooner than the other
woman, as she had no load to carry, and when she saw her husband he
naturally asked her where the fish were. "Now," she thought, "here's a
good chance to get that woman out of the way," so she told her husband
that his other wife was a _poer_, or witch, and she had taken all the
fish away from her. Now, witches are of course very much dreaded, so
when the poor woman came home with her heavy load of fish, the villagers
killed her with their sticks, and she was changed into a tortoise