in, yet when cooked it was enough for a meal.

In the morning the Gosain told the Raja's son to go to a blacksmith
and have a shield made of twelve maunds of iron and with its edge so
sharp that a leaf falling on it would be cut in two. So he went to
the blacksmith and had a shield made, and took it to the Gosain. The
Gosain said that they must test it, and he set it edgewise in the
ground under a tree and told the Raja's son to climb the tree and
shake some leaves down. The Raja's son climbed the tree and shook
the branches, but not a leaf fell. Then the Gosain climbed up and
gave the tree a shake and the leaves fell in showers and every leaf
that touched the edge of the shield was cut in two. Then the Gosain
was satisfied that the shield was rightly made.

Then the Gosain told the Raja's son, that further on in the jungle
he would find a pair of snakes living in a bamboo house; and they
had a daughter whom they never allowed to come out of the house; he
must fix the sharp shield in the door of the house and hide himself
in a tree, and when the snakes came out they would be cut to pieces;
then, when the snakes were dead, he was to go to their daughter and
she would show him where to find the golden animals. So the Raja's
son set out and about noon he came to the home of the snakes, and he
set the shield in the doorway as the Gosain had said, and at evening,
when the snakes tried to come out of the house, they were cut to
pieces. When her father and mother were dead, the daughter came out
to see what had happened, and the Raja's son saw that she was very
beautiful. He went to her and began to talk and it did not take them
long to fall in love with each other. The snake maiden soon forgot
her father and mother, and she and the Raja's son lived together in
the bamboo house many days.

The snake maiden strictly forebade him to go anywhere to the west or
south of the house, but one day he disobeyed her and wandered away
to the west. After going a short distance he saw golden leopards
dancing, and directly he set eyes on them, he himself was changed
into a golden leopard and began to dance with the others. The snake
maiden soon knew what had happened, and she followed him and led him
back and restored him to his own shape.

A few days later, the Raja's son went away to the south and there he
found golden snakes dancing on the bank of a tank and directly he saw
them, he too became a golden snake and joined the dance. Agai