Then, as he went out-of-doors, he re-entered the house with a piece of
hard dung in his mouth, and put it in the alcove. As the master of the
house became angry and beat him, he, being a large crow, flew out of the
window, making the sound "K[=a]! k[=a]!" For this reason, even crows are
creatures to be dreaded. Be very careful!--(Translated literally. Told
by Penri, 11th July, 1886.)

[In another version of this story, communicated to me by Mr John
Batchelor, the crow, enraged at not having received an invitation to a
feast given by some of the more handsome birds, flies high into the air
with a piece of hard dung in its mouth, and lets it drop into the middle
of the party, to the great confusion of the guests. Some of the smaller
birds take counsel together as to the advisability of interfering to
restore the harmony of the occasion, but finally decide that it is not
for them, who were also omitted from the list of invitations, to mix
themselves up with such a matter. _Moral_: If you give a feast, ask all
your friends to it. If any are left out, they are sure to feel hurt.]

xxvii.--_Okikurumi, Samayunguru, and the Shark._

Okikurumi and his henchman Samayunguru went out one day to sea, and
speared a large shark, which ran away, up and down the sea, with the
line and the boat. The two men grew very tired of pulling at him, and
could not prevent the boat from being pulled about in all directions.
Their hands were bloody and blistered both on the backs and on the
palms, till at last Samayunguru sank dead in the bottom of the boat. At
last Okikurumi could hold on no longer, and he cursed the shark, saying:
"You bad shark! I will cut the rope. But the tip of the harpoons, made
half of iron and half of bone, shall remain sticking in your flesh; and
you shall feel in your body the reverberation of the iron and the
scraping of the bone; and on your skin shall grow the _rasupa_-tree and
the _shiuri_-tree of which the spear-handle is made, and the _hai_-grass
by which the tip of the harpoon is tied to the body of it, and the
_nipesh_-tree of which the rope tying the harpoon itself is made, so
that, though you are such a mighty fish, you shall not be able to swim
in the water; and you shall die, and a last be washed ashore at the
river-mouth of Saru; and even the carrier-crows and the dogs and foxes
will not eat you, but will only void their foeces upon you, and you
shall at last rot away to earth."

The shark laughed, thi