Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/351

Die, Mr. Worn-out!
Die, you old wretch!
Die, old Spade-mouth!
Die, old Fetch-what-you-see!
Die, old Short-loin-cloth!
Die, old Snout-grubber!
⁠How do you like it?
⁠How are you now?
Soon you are done for,
Soon you squeal out,
Soon you are shrivelled,
Soon you are doubled up,
Soon you won't move."

But after a little the wild-hog made a desperate effort and got out from among the fire, but his skin and his fore and hind feet were terribly burnt, although he was still alive. So the rat said, "It was all a joke of mine, but go and bathe in the water." So the wild-hog went and did so, but as soon as he had bathed he was dead.

RAPÉTO.

The stories which people relate of this Rapéto are exceedingly puzzling; still, we may safely say that they are fabulous.

The town where he lived, they say, is Ambòhidrapéto, west of Antanànarìvo.^[1]

And the fables related of him are these—

1. They say he was so tall as to touch the skies. And although it was at Ambòhidrapéto that he ate rice, the rice he cooked would be in the forest to the east [that is, twenty miles away].

2. They say he went to amuse himself at Ambòhitràrahàba,^[2] and it was only one step from there to Ambòhidrapéto. [The places are about six miles apart.]

3. Those rocks, with hollows like human feet in them, on the roadside near Ambòhitràrahàba are, they say, the impressions of his legs and feet and knees, by which he showed his strength.^[3]

4. They say he fetched the moon as a plaything for his children; but he was struck by a meteorolite, and so was killed.

1. Ambòhidrapéto, that is, "Town-of-Rapéto," is a small town on a low hill about three miles west of the capital.
2. This is a large village about three miles north of the capital.
3. There are certain rocks with some curious hollows in them in the place described. They have probably been produced by rain-water and the unequal hardness of portions of the surface.