‘Once upon a time a man married two wives. And he hoed two rice-patches, and made a boundary between them, and assigned one to each. Both women sowed rice, and when it was time to keep off the birds, one of the women took her water-jar and placed it on the boundary as a drinking-place (for the use of those watching the crops?). And her companion planted some pumpkin-seeds near the other woman’s water-jar. And a shoot of the pumpkin plant grew over the rim of the jar, and so a pumpkin got inside the jar and grew big, and they could not get it out again, for the jar was too narrow at the mouth. So one day the woman who owned the water-jar said to the owner of the pumpkin, “I say, I want my jar to take to the village. Go and take out your pumpkin.” The other woman went and tried to break it up inside the jar, saying, “Let me get it out in bits.” But the owner forbade her, saying, “Don’t do that.” So she said, “Well, shall I cook it inside the jar?” But she refused. “No, no, I won’t have you making my jar all grimy!” So the other said, “Well, take the pumpkin and the jar too.” But she refused again. “Not I! do you think I am hungry and want your pumpkin?” So there was a quarrel about it between these two women. ‘Now, what was the husband to do to make peace between his wives? He wanted to break the jar and throw away the pumpkin. But the wife who owned the jar said, “If you want to break my jar, let me go too. I shall go home and stay there and have nothing to do with you.” The husband said, “Woman, you are a bad lot.” She answered, “Am I really a bad lot? Yet I am only vexed about my jar, and want nothing else beside.” ‘Now, just see the husband’s clever trick. He feigned sickness, and in the evening pretended he was very ill indeed. Both his wives slept in the same house that night because their husband was seriously ill. And they tried to cook dainty dishes. “Let us see if we can cook for a sick man.” But he would not eat at all, enduring his hunger till the morning. ‘In the morning his mother arrived, and began to cry bitterly because her son was sick; and she asked, “My son, would you like us to cook you some food?” He said, “I want no other sort of food, but if there is a pumpkin I do want you to get it and buy salt and cook it, and I think I may eat it to-day.” Those two women were there on the spot, and one of them, the owner of the jar, took the head of the man and laid it in her lap, and the owner of the pumpkin took his feet and laid them in her lap. And the first, when she heard that the man wanted a pumpkin, said to the other woman, “Go at once and break the jar, and bring the pumpkin, and let us cook it, so that our husband may eat.” She ran and got the pumpkin, and cooked it, and gave it him to eat, and he got well of his sickness. And so the trouble ended.’