Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/471

the Vanchung Maid exceedingly, and swallowed her with one gulp. Then Tonulawki wrapped herself in the Vanchung Maid's cloth, and went and sat where she had been. Then Tlumtea arrived. "Why have your fingers become so pointed and your eyes so small?" said Tlumtea. "From up there Tlumtea will soon come, I said; and, with pointing, my fingers became sharp; from up there Tlumtea will soon come, I said, and, with gazing, my eyes became small," she said. Then Tlumtea, though very vexed, took her along with him. The people of his village, saying,—"The Vanchung Maid is coming," spread cloths on the roadside for her to rest on. When Tonulawki arrived, supported by Tlumtea, the people all said,—"Awi! Why, that is only Tonulawki," they said, and swiftly pulled away the cloths they had spread. Then Tonulawki was covered with shame, and hid herself below the path, and was sick, and brought up the Vanchung Maid's necklace, which Tlumtea took to an old woman, saying,—"Granny! Tonulawki has swallowed the Vanchung Maid; what shall I do?", said he. Then the old woman replied,—"If you preserve the vomit in a pot, and look at it on the seventh day, it will surely have changed into the Vanchung Maid again," said she. So he preserved it. "Keep it for seven months, did she say?", he thought. But on the seventh day it turned into a human being. The Vanchung Maid used secretly to cook tasty rice cakes for Tlumtea's food, but for Tonulawki to eat she cooked nothing but deer's dung and husks of rice. One day Tlumtea said,—"I will catch this person who always cooks our food for us," said he. Early one morning he made as if he were going to his cultivation, but hid himself under a mattress. Then it became time to cook the evening meal, and behold the Vanchung Maid came jumping down from the top shelf above the hearth, and Tlumtea caught her, but she besought him,—"Don't catch me; your wife will swallow me again," she said. But