to be claimed.

XCIII. The Boy Who Was Changed into a Dog.

Once upon a time there were seven brothers: the six eldest were
married, but the youngest was only a youth and looked after the
cattle. The six married brothers spent their life in hunting and
used often to be away from home for one or two months at a time. Now
all their six wives were witches and directly their husbands left
home the six women used to climb a peepul tree and ride away on it,
to eat men or do some other devilry. The youngest brother saw them
disappear every day and made up his mind to find out what they did. So
one morning he hid in a hollow in the trunk of the peepul tree and
waited till his sisters-in-law came and climbed up into the branches:
then the tree rose up and was carried through the air to the banks of
a large river, where the women climbed down and disappeared. After a
time they came back and climbed into the tree and rode on it back to
the place where it came from. But as they descended they saw their
brother-in-law hiding in the trunk and at first they tried to make
him promise not to tell what he had seen, but he swore that he would
let his brothers know all about it: so then they thought of killing
him, but in the end the eldest said that this was not necessary and
she fetched two iron nails and drove them into the soles of his feet
whereupon he at once became a dog. He could understand all that was
said but of course could not speak. He followed them home and they
treated him well and always gave him a regular helping at meals as
if he were a human being and did not merely throw him the scraps as
if he were a dog: nor would he have eaten them if they had.

A month afterwards the other brothers came home and asked if all had
gone well in their absence. Their wives said that all was well except
that the youngest brother had unfortunately disappeared without leaving
any trace. While they were talking the dog came up and fawned on the
brothers, so they asked where it had come from and the women said
that it had followed them home on the day that they were looking for
the missing boy: and they had kept it ever since. So matters rested:
the brothers searched high and low but could not find the missing
boy and so gave up the quest.

Now the Raja of that country had three daughters whom he had tried in
vain to get married: whenever a bridegroom was proposed to them they
declared that he was not to their liking and they would