ols who threw stones at the moon to frighten her off one fine
moonlight night when they thought she was coming too near, and that
there was danger of her burning their crops, are well known, and it is
customary to ask a man if he was born in one of these places if he has
done anything particularly foolish. The story of the double-fool--i.e.,
of the man who tried to lighten the boat by carrying his pingo load over
his shoulders;[5] of the man who stretched out his hands to be warmed by
the fire on the other side of the river; of the rustic's wife who had
her own head shaved, so as not to lose the barber's services for the day
when he came, and her husband was away from home; of the villagers who
tied up their mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant
tracks in the rice fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at
night; of the man who would not wash his body in order to spite the
river; of the people who flogged the elk-skin at home to avenge
themselves on the deer that trespassed in the fields at night; and of
the man who performed the five precepts--all these are popular stories
of foolish people which have passed into proverbs."[6]

The last of the stories referred to in the above extract is as follows:
A woman once rebuked her husband for not performing the five (Buddhist)
precepts. "I don't know what they are," he replied. "Oh, it's very
easy," she said; "all you have to do is to go to the priest and repeat
what he says after him." "Is that all?" he answered. "Then I'll go and
do it at once." Off he went, and as he neared the temple the priest saw
him and called out, "Who are you?" to which he replied, "Who are you?"
"What do you want?" demands the priest. "What do you want?" the
blockhead answers dutifully. "Are you mad?" roared the priest. "Are you
mad?" returned the rustic. "Here," said the priest to his attendants,
"take and beat him well;" and notwithstanding that he carefully repeated
the words again, taken and thoroughly well thrashed he was, after which
he crawled back to his wife and said, "What a wonderful woman you are!
You manage to repeat the five precepts every day, and are strong and
healthy, while I, who have only said them once, am nearly dead with
fever from the bruises."[7]

To this last may be added a story in the _Katha Manjari_, a
Canarese collection, of the stupid fellow and the _Ramayana_, one
of the two great Hindu epics: One day a man was reading the
_Ramayana_ in the