to be cut in several parts of the body. After this Kweku Ananse would spread a report against Ananse, and then they would be able to decide which was the more painful. Ananse consented to the proposal and they departed.
Early next morning Kweku Ananse presented himself before Ananse, who made many deep cuts in Kweku's body. He returned home with blood all over his body. His wife, seeing that, asked him how he came to be in such a sad state.
Kweku Ananse, feeling rather proud of his courage, related to his wife the affair between himself and Ananse. He asked his wife to tend his wounds, and after his recovery she would see what would happen to Ananse. His wife therefore did her best, and in the course of a month or two Kweku Ananse was well again.
Just about that time Ananse was about to go to a certain place to marry the beautiful daughter of a king. When Kweku Ananse was well he went to Ananse Panyin to show himself and how he had recovered from bodily wounds.
It was now Kweku's turn to prove the grief of slander. A week later, Ananse Panyin went with his retinue to the lady's place, where the marriage was to be celebrated. Time went slowly on and at last the appointed day came. On the same day Kweku Ananse too came to the place, and during the night he went to the kitchen of Ananse's mother-in-law and polluted it. He hired a rat to make a hole in the ground, and when the people assembled and began to ask questions of the room, the rat replied that the bridegroom was the cause of the pollution.
On the day following the marriage, a girl was sent to sweep the kitchen and make the necessary arrangements for cooking. She was shocked and horrified, and exclaimed, "Who has done this?" "It was the bridegroom," answered the rat from under the ground. The girl, not heeding what was said by the rat, began to shout at the top of her voice. Her alarm brought a crowd of people to the place, among whom was Kweku Ananse, who all the time was keeping watch near the place.
When he arrived he said: "I will find out who has done this." He then called aloud for the name of the culprit three
