at the cat lifted up its hands and swore an oath that it would
not leave their treatment of it unrevenged. Then one of them took a long
pole and struck at the cat, but the cat caught hold of the pole, and
began to clamber down it, whereupon all the people grew greatly alarmed
and ran away, and left the fire to burn as it might. And because no one
regarded the fire, nor sought to put it out, the whole village was
burned to a house, and notwithstanding that, the cat escaped. And the
Schildburgers fled with their wives and children to a neighbouring
forest. And at this time was burned their chancery and all the papers
therein, which is the reason why their history is not to be found
described in a more regular manner.

Thus ended the career of the Schildburgers as a community, according to
the veracious chronicle of their marvellous exploits, the first of
which, their carrying sunshine into the council-house, is a favourite
incident in the noodle-stories of many countries, and has its parallel
in the Icelandic story of the Three Brothers of Bakki: They had observed
that in winter the weather was colder than in summer, also that the
larger the windows of a house were the colder it was. All frost and
sharp cold, therefore, they thought sprang from the fact that houses had
windows in them. So they built themselves a house on a new plan, without
windows in it at all. It followed, of course, that there was always
pitch darkness in it. They found that this was rather a fault in the
house, but comforted themselves with the certainty that in winter it
would be very warm; and as to light, they thought they could contrive
some easy means of getting the house lighted. One fine day in the middle
of summer, when the sunshine was brightest, they began to carry the
darkness out of the house in their caps, and emptied it out when they
came into the sunshine, which they then carried into the dark room. Thus
they worked hard the whole day, but in the evening, when they had done
all their best, they were not a little disappointed to find that it was
as dark as before, so much so that they could not tell one hand from the
other.[1]

There is a Kashmiri story which bears a slight resemblance to the
exploit of the Schildburgers with the cat. A poor old woman used to beg
her food by day and cook it at night. Half of the food she would eat in
the morning, and the other half in the evening. After a while a cat got
to know of this arrangement, and