Two Legends of Malacca
By R. O. Winstedt, D. Litt. (Oxon.)
The "Malay Annals" (Shellabear's romanized Sějarah Mělayu, 1909, Vol. T, p. 60) record how Sultan Iskandar was hunting near Bertain River, when a white mouse-deer kicked his hunting dog into the water. He chose this spot where mouse-deer were valiant for his new settlement and named it Mělaka after a tree (Phyllanthus pectinatus of the Order Euphorbiaceae) against which he was leaning at the time of the incident.
Now there exists a similar Sinhalese legend of the founding of Candy, a hare and a jackal taking the place of mouse-deer and dog and the hare's courage being ascribed to recoil from a rock that intercepted her flight (Parker's "Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon," 1914, No. 76, Vol. II, p. 3).
In the Hikayat Hang Tuah it is related how when they came to Malacca the Portuguese bought as much land as an ox-hide would cover and their captain cut it into strips and so got enough land to erect a large godown (J. R. A. S., S. B. 83, p. 122). Benfey has collected many parallels from mediaeval and modern literature and folk-lore; there is the famous tale of the founding of Carthage, the tale of Hengist in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and another in the French romance Melusine; there is the popular etymology of Hyde Park. Popular etymology erroneously finds the same origin for Bhutnair and Calcutta (Todd's "Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan," II, 235; 1852). "Thare-kettaya near the modern city of Prome was built 443 B.C. Its name has to do with a very ancient artifice. 'Facti de nomine byrsam taurino quantum possent circumdare tergo.'" (Scott O' Connor's "Mandalay," p. 301; London, 1907). American Indian attributed the trick to Europeans who bought land from them. In Sanskrit gotsharman (lit. cowhide) = "a land measure, one hundred feet long and ten broad."
