EVOLUTION IN FOLKLORE. 103 



Then the king called two of his wives, and when they came he 

 was ashamed to tell them what he wanted, so he said to them that 

 their hair had grown too much, and that they must cut it down. 

 Then the two women went into their own room and cut the hair, 

 and the king came behind them and gathered some of it and gave 

 it to Spider and Kwaku Tse, together with the two heads and the 

 two hearts of the cows. 



Spider and Kwaku Tse departed from the king and carried 

 all the things to the house wherein they lodged, and they told the 

 house-master that they wished to marry and to give a wedding 

 feast. The house-master said that there was no meat in the town, 

 and though people passed by driving cows to other towns yet they 

 would not sell them. Then Spider and Kwaku Tse took the two 

 cows' heads, and went into the road where the people used to pass 

 driving their cows, and there was much mire at a certain part of 

 the road, and they took the two heads and planted them in the 

 mire so that the severed necks were hidden. 



By and by some people came driving cows, and Spider and 

 Kwaku Tse called to them, and said : " We were passing here with 

 our cows, and lo ! this mire has swallowed them up, and we can 

 not draw them out. Can ye take them out for us ? " The people 

 said " Yes " ; and they left their own cows, and went and laid hold 

 of the horns of the cows' heads that were in the mire, and pulled 

 hard to pull the cows out, and when they pulled the two heads 

 came up out of the mire. Then Spider and Kwaku Tse cried 

 aloud and said : " See what ye have done ! See what ye have done ! 

 Ye have pulled the heads off our cows and left the bodies still in 

 the mire. Ye must pay us for our two cows." Then the people 

 were obliged to give them two of their own cows, and they took 

 the two heads and cast them among the bushes. 



Spider and Kwaku Tse take the heads from the bushes and 

 play the same trick upon some other passers-by, after which they 

 make a medicine with the hair of the king's wives, and by means 

 of it compel the two wives to come to them at night, and in the 

 end deprive the king of his wives altogether. 



This tale furnishes the material for two of the stories of Uncle 

 Remus. The notion of entering a cow and cutting meat from its 

 inside is to be found in No. XXXIV The Sad Fate of Mr. Fox. 

 Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox enter a cow and cut meat, and Brer 

 Rabbit, through disregarding Brer Fox's injunction and cutting 

 into the " haslet," kills the cow, so that they can not make their 

 way out again. Then one hides in the maul and the other in the 

 gall when the cow is out open. The trick of planting the cows' 

 heads in the mire and pretending that the animals had foundered 

 appears in No. XX How Mr. Rabbit saved his Meat where 

 Brer Rabbit plants a cow's tail in the earth and tells Brer Fox 



