het off
the handle and put it in the fire till it became red-hot; and meanwhile
he kept the tiger quiet by throwing down pieces of meat. Then when
the axe head was ready he picked it out of the fire and threw it down;
the tiger caught it as it fell and roared aloud with pain; its tongue
and palate and throat were so burnt that it died.

Thus the man saved himself from the tiger and whether the story be
true or no, it is known to all Santals.

CXLV. The Goala's Daughter.

There was once a man of the _Goala_ caste who had an only daughter and
she grew up and was married, but had no child; and after twenty years
of married life she gave up all hope of having any. This misfortune
preyed on her mind and she fell into a melancholy. Her parents asked
her why she was always weeping and all the answer she would give was
"My sorrow is that I have never worn clothes of 'Dusty cloth' and
that is a sorrow which you cannot cure." But her father and mother
determined to do what they could for their daughter and sent servants
with money into all the bazars to buy "Dusty cloth". The shopkeepers
had never heard of such an article so they bought some cloth of any
sort they could get and brought it to the Goala; when he offered it
to his daughter she thanked him and begged him not to waste his money:

"You do not understand" said she--"what I mean by 'Dusty cloth.' God
has not given it to me and no one else can; what I mean by 'Dusty
cloth' is the cloth of a mother made dusty by the feet of her
child." Then her father and mother understood and wept with her,
saying that they would do what man could do but this was in the hands
of God; and they sang:--

"Whatever the child of another may suffer, we care not:
But our own child, we will take into our lap, even when it is
covered with dust."

CXLVI. The Brahman's Clothes.

There was once a Brahman who had two wives; like many Brahmans he lived
by begging and was very clever at wheedling money out of people. One
day the fancy took him to go to the market place dressed only in
a small loin cloth such as the poorest labourers wear and see how
people treated him. So he set out but on the road and in the market
place and in the village no one salaamed to him or made way to him
and when he begged no one gave him alms. He soon got tired of this
and hastened home and putting on his best _pagri_ and coat and dhoti
went back to the market place. This time every o