Mischiefs One Hundred and Ninety (in number),
I know the origin from which you sprang.
The mischief of an Iguana was your origin.
The Heart of Timber was your origin,
The Yellow Glow of Sunset was your origin,
Return to the places from whence ye came,
Do me no harm or scathe.
If you do me harm or scathe, ye shall be consumed by the curse,
Eaten and enclosed in Disaster (bintongan), crushed to death by the Thirty Divisions of the
Korān,
Smitten by the sanctity of the Four Corners of the Earth,
By virtue of, etc., etc.
Bintongan was explained to me carefully as = bĕnchana (calamity or disaster). ↑
108
This and the four succeeding names are evidently corruptions of the names of the four
archangels, “Michael, Israfel, Azrael, and Gabriel.” Vide p. 98, supra. ↑
109
Vide pp. 94, 95, note, supra. ↑
110
In the Pĕlandok Jinaka, a Malay beast-fable, the Mouse-deer is styled “Sheikh ʿalam (or Shah
ʿalam) di Rimba,” “Chief (or King) of the Forest.” ↑
111
Vide p. 117. ↑
112
Cp. our use of the phrase “an ugly customer,” vide App. lxxxi. ↑
113
J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 7, p. 26. ↑
114
The wild dogs of the jungle are considered by Malays to be not natural dogs, but “ghost” dogs
of the pack of the Spectre Huntsman. They are regarded as most dangerous to meet, for,
according to a Malay informant, “if they bark at us, we shall assuredly die where we stand and
shall not be able to return home; if, however, we see them and bark at them before they bark at
us, we shall not be affected by them. Therefore do all Malays give tongue when they meet the
wild dog in the forest.” ↑