Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/104

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84
Collectanea.

down, saw two men walking along with a very sorrowful aspect. Jĭluan called down and asked them what the matter was, and they answered that there was trouble in their village because the daughter of their Raja had been taken suddenly ill and nobody could cure her. "Who is your Raja?" said Jĭluan. "The Raja of the pigs" (Raja baboi), said the men. Then Jĭluan began to climb down the tree, and when he reached ground he said, "If you will take me to your Raja, I believe I can cure his daughter."

The two men then turned back along the path by which they had come, and conducted Jĭluan to their village and into the presence of their Raja, who received him graciously and agreed to his attempting the cure of his daughter that same evening. Jĭluan then stipulated that no one except himself should enter the room where the Raja's daughter lay ill until he had either failed or succeeded in curing her, and also that during that time nobody should approach the house from below. This being agreed to, he cleared the people out and went to examine the patient. The Raja's daughter turned out to be a very beautiful, fair-skinned girl, but, when Jĭluan came to examine her injuries, he found Tugau's golden spear-head sticking in her side. This he extracted, put into a hollow bamboo joint, and threw down below the house, after which, by his magic art, he closed and cured the wound it had made. Then he and the Raja's daughter began to talk together, and she was so pleased with Jĭluan that he easily persuaded her to run away with him (or, as some versions have it, the Raja gave her to him), and become his second wife, although by the old custom only a single wife is allowed. They stole down from the house and started off before dawn, Jĭluan picking up the golden spear-head as he went. Now between the Raja's house and that of Tugau there were several streams to be forded, and, when they reached the first, the Raja's daughter seemed reluctant to cross it. However, she did at last, but, on climbing the opposite bank, Jĭluan saw that her feet had turned to those of a pig. At the next stream they forded, the lady became a pig as far as the knees, at the next to the waist, and so on, until, just as they were getting near Tugau's house,