get hold of the goat. They stationed themselves at intervals
on the high road. When the Brahman, who carried the goat on
his back, approached the first thief, the thief said,
'Brahman, why do you carry a dog on your back?' The Brahman
replied, 'It is not a dog, it is a goat.' A little while after
he was accosted by the second thief, who said, 'Brahman, why
do you carry a dog on your back?' The Brahman felt perplexed,
put the goat down, examined it, took it up again, and walked
on. Soon after he was stopped by the third thief, who said,
'Brahman, why do you carry a dog on your back?' Then the
Brahman was frightened, threw down the goat, and walked home
to perform his ablutions for having touched an unclean animal.
The thieves took the goat and ate it." The adroitness of the
Norse King in "The Three Princesses of Whiteland" shows but
poorly in comparison with the keen psychological insight and
cynical sarcasm of these Hindu sharpers. In the course of his
travels this prince met three brothers fighting on a lonely
moor. They had been fighting for a hundred years about the
possession of a hat, a cloak, and a pair of boots, which would
make the wearer invisible, and convey him instantly
whithersoever he might wish to go. The King consents to act as
umpire, provided he may once try the virtue of the magic
garments; but once clothed in them, of course he disappears,
leaving the combatants to sit down and suck their thumbs. Now
in the "Sea of Streams of Story," written in the twelfth
century by Somadeva of Cashmere, the Indian King Putraka,
wandering in the Vindhya Mountains, similarly discomfits two
brothers who are quarrelling over a pair of shoes, which are
like the sandals of Hermes, and a bowl which has the same
virtue as Aladdin's lamp. "Why don't you run a race for them?"