Excerpt from Fables Folk-Tales From an Eastern Forest
Here, however, it is perhaps worth noting that although the Mouse-deer as a master of slimness is given the preeminent place among all the beasts of the field, its mantle is sometimes temporarily permitted to fall upon the shoulders of other and quite different members of the animal creation. Hence we hnd in the 14th story, that the King crow is worsted by a Water-snai], and I may add that in a Javanese fable of the same type (for which compare our own ‘hare-and-tortoise’ F able) the Mouse-deer itself plays the part of the deceived, instead of that of the deceiver.
But the subject of the mutual relations of the Beasts in Malayan Fable is one which has yet to be worked out, and which lies unfortunately far beyond the bounds of the present disquisition.
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