t a quantity of sweet
cakes. He also caught a hare and killed it. The fish and cakes he
disposed of in different parts of the wood, and the hare he hooked on a
fishing-line, and then threw it in the river. After breakfast he took
his wife with him into the wood, which they had scarcely entered when
she found a pike, then a perch, and then a roach, on the ground. With
many exclamations of surprise, she gathered up the fish and put them in
her basket. Presently they came to a pear-tree, from the branches of
which hung sweet cakes. "See!" she cried. "Cakes on a pear-tree!" "Quite
natural," replied he; "it has rained cakes, and some have remained on
this tree; travellers have picked up the rest." Continuing their way to
the village, they passed near a stream. "Wait a little," said the
husband; "I set my line early this morning, and I'll look if anything is
caught on it." He then pulled in the line, and behold, there was a hare
hooked on to it! "How extraordinary!" cries the good wife--"a hare in
the water!" "Why," says he, "don't you know there are hares in the water
as well as rats?" "No, indeed, I knew it not." They now returned home,
and the wife set about preparing all the nice eatables for supper. In a
day or two the labourer found from the talk of his acquaintances that
his finding the treasure was no secret in the village, and in less than
a week he was summoned to the castle. "Is it true," said the lord, "that
you have found a treasure?" "It is not true," was his reply. "But your
wife has told me all." "My wife does not know what she says--she is mad,
my lord." Hereupon the woman cries, "It is the truth, my lord; he has
found a treasure and buried it beneath the floor of our cottage."
"When?" "On the eve before the day we went into the forest to look for
fish." "What do you say?" "Yes; it was on the day that it rained cakes;
we gathered a basketful of them, and coming home, my husband fished a
fine hare out of the river." My lord declared the woman to be an idiot;
nevertheless he caused his servants to search under the labourer's
cottage floor, but nothing was found there, and so the shrewd fellow
secured his treasure.

The silly son figures frequently in Indian story-books; sometimes a
number of fools' exploits are strung together and ascribed to one
individual, as in the tale of "Foolish Sachuli;" but generally they are
told as separate stories. The following adventure of Sachuli is also
found, in varied form, in