In Kadiri’s abridgment of the Parrot-Book, the Elk is taken prisoner as well as his companion the Ass, and the two subordinate stories, of the Foolish Thieves and of the Faggot-maker, are omitted.  They are also omitted in the version of the Singing Ass found in the Panchatantra (B. v, F. 7), where a jackal, not an elk, is the companion of the ass, and when he perceives the latter about to “sing” he says:  “Let me get to the door of the garden, where I may see the gardener as he approaches, and then sing away as long as you please.”  The gardener beats the ass till he is weary, and then fastens a clog to the animal’s leg and ties him to a post.  After great exertion, the ass contrives to get free from the post and hobbles away with the clog still on his leg.  The jackal meets his old comrade and exclaims:  “Bravo, uncle!  You would sing your song, though I did all I could to dissuade you, and now see what a fine ornament you have received as recompense for your performance.”  This form of the story reappears in the Tantrakhyana, a collection of tales, in Sanskrit, discovered by Prof.  Cecil Bendall in 1884, of which he has given an interesting account in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xx, pp. 465-501, including the original text of a number of the stories.—­In Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, translated from Schiefner’s German rendering of stories from the Kah-gyur (No. xxxii), the story is also found, with a bull in place of a jackal.  An ass meets the bull one evening and proposes they should go together and feast themselves to their hearts’ content in the king’s bean-field, to which the bull replies:  “O nephew, as you are wont to let your voice resound, we should run great risk.”  Said the ass:  “O uncle, let us go; I will not raise my voice.”  Having entered the bean-field together, the ass uttered no sound until he had eaten his fill.  Then quoth he:  “Uncle, shall I not sing a little?” The bull responded:  “Wait an instant until I have gone away, and then do just as you please.”  So the bull runs away, and the ass lifts up his melodious voice, upon which the king’s servants came and seized him, cut off his long ears, fastened a pestle on his neck, and drove him out of the field.—­There can be no question, I think, as to the superiority, in point of humour, of Nakhshabi’s version in Tuti Nama, as given above.

IV

THE COVETOUS GOLDSMITH—­THE KING WHO DIED OF LOVE—­THE DISCOVERY OF MUSIC—­THE SEVEN REQUISITES OF A PERFECT WOMAN.

To quit, for the present at least, the regions of fable and magic, and return to tales of common life:  the 30th recital in Kadiri’s abridged text is of

The Goldsmith who lost his Life through his Covetousness.