The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India
Title: The Giant Crab, and Other Tales from Old India
Author: W. H. D. Rouse
Illustrator: W. Heath Robinson
Release date: May 5, 2011 [eBook #36039]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/American Libraries and Google Print.)
London
David Nutt, 270–271, Strand
1897
Warning
To the Studious or Scientific Reader
I hope no one will imagine this to be a scientific book. It is meant to amuse children; and if it succeeds in this, its aim will be hit. Thus the stories here given, although grounded upon the great Buddhist collection named below, have been ruthlessly altered wherever this would better suit them for the purpose in view; and probably some of them Buddha himself would fail to recognise.
My thanks are due to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press for permitting the use of their translation of the Jātaka Book;1 from which comes the groundwork of the stories, and occasionally a phrase or a versicle is borrowed. To this work I refer all scholars, folk-lorists and scientific persons generally: warning them that if they plunge deeper into these pages, they will be horribly shocked.
1 The Jātaka; or Stories of the Buddha’s former Births. Translated from the Pāli by various hands, under the editorship of Professor E. B. Cowell. Vol. I., translated by R. Chalmers, B.A. (1895). Vol. II., translated by W. H. D. Rouse, M.A. (1895). Vol. III., translated by H. T. Francis, M.A., and R. A. Neil, M.A. (1897). Vol. IV., in preparation. All the stories but two come from the second volume of this work.
Contents
- Page
- The Giant Crab 1
- The Hypocritical Cat 6
- The Crocodile and the Monkey 9
- The Axe, the Drum, the Bowl, and the Diamond 14
- The Wise Parrot and the Foolish Parrot 26
- The Dishonest Friend 30
- The Mouse and the Farmer 34
- The Talkative Tortoise 38
- The Monkeys and the Gardener 41
- The Goblin and the Sneeze 45
- The Grateful Beasts and the Ungrateful Prince 49
- The Goblin in the Pool 56
- The Foolish Farmer and the King 59
- The Pious Wolf 62
- Birds of a Feather 64
- Spend a Pound to Win a Penny 68
- The Cunning Crane and the Crab 70
- Union is Strength 77
- Silence is Golden 80
- The Great Yellow King and his Porter 82
- The Quail and the Falcon 86
- Pride Must Have a Fall 88
- The Bold Beggar 95
- The Jackal Would A-Wooing Go 97
- The Lion and the Boar 102
- The Goblin City 106
- Lacknose 111
- The King’s Lesson 114