83 
1883.] C. Swynnerfcon —Folktales from the Upper Panjab. 
country nambdas of felt, one may be permitted to detect a remnant, how¬ 
ever slight, of Grecian taste and western refinement. Passing on to 
a succeeding era, one remembers the local tradition of king Rasalu who, 
from those very heights to the left, hurled at his rival on the eastern bank 
a mighty defiance in the shape of a huge mass of greenstone weighing a 
maund and a half. Five kos it hurtled through the air, and it still reposes 
on the spot where it fell. Or, one longs for a holiday, however short, and 
for money and men, to penetrate beyond the tributary Sirin, famous for 
marsir, and to visit the remoter hills of Thannaul, the district of 
Nawab Akram Khan, whose Summer House gleams from a distant peak, 
there, among much besides, to search for and to find the “ Haldi Pillif 
or great Rocking Stone, of which the people tell, and which though of 
towering size can be moved, say they, by a touch of a single finger. 
However, it is time to address myself to the Folktales. I shall at¬ 
tempt in this issue little or no commentary, but I would leave each one of 
them to speak for itself, merely premising that the first series shall consist 
of a selected number of fables and short stories, and the next of longer and 
more ambitious stories having much resemblance in general character to 
the tales in the “Arabian Nights.” 
I. The Weaver and the Prophecy. 
A village weaver went out to cut firewood. Climbing a tree he stood 
upon one of the branches, which he began to hew off close to the trunk. 
“ My friend,” said a traveller passing below, “ you are standing on the very 
limb which you are cutting off. In a few minutes you and it will both 
fall to the ground.” The weaver unconcernedly continued his task and 
soon both the branch and himself fell to the foot of the tree as the traveller 
had foretold. Limping after him the weaver cried, “ Sir, you are God, you 
are God, Sir, you are God—what you prophesied has come to pass.” “ Tut, 
man, tut,” answered the traveller, “ I’m not God.” “ Nay, but you are,” 
replied the weaver, “and now pray, 0 pray, tell me when I am to die?” 
To be rid of bis importunity, tbe traveller answered, “ You will die on the 
day on which your mouth bleeds,” and he pursued his way. 
Some days had elapsed when the weaver happened to be making some 
scarlet cloth, and as he had frequently to separate the threads with his 
mouth, a piece of the coloured fibre by chance stuck in one of his front teeth. 
Catching sight of this in a glass, and instantly concluding that it was blood, 
and that his last hour was at hand, he entered his hut, and said “ Wife, 
wife, I’m sick ; in a few moments I shall be dead : let me lie down, and 
go, dig my grave!” So he lay down on his bed, and turning his face to the 
wall, closed his eyes, and began deliberately to die. And indeed, such is the 
power of the imagination among these people, that he would have died with- 
