[Folk-tales.] Like all Nagas [189] the Lhotas possess a great store of traditional tales. The old men tell them and teach them to the younger generation, having themselves learnt them from their forefathers. Every tale is supposed to be told word for word as it has been handed down, but versions naturally vary from village to village. To a tale which most of them must know by heart the audience listens as if none of them had ever heard it before, greeting every joke with laughter and appreciating every point. A very popular class of story is that which explains the peculiarities of various animals. Some of these stories closely resemble those current among the Semas and other tribes. The following are typical examples. The Sambhur and the Hanuman Monkey. [190] This is a tale of the old days before deer and other animals became so different one from the other. The sambhur and the hanuman monkey became sworn friends. In those days the sambhur had a long tail, while the hanuman monkey had no tail at all. One day the hanuman monkey asked the sambhur for his tail and said, “Friend, I want to put on your tail and see how it becomes me. Please lend it to me.” Then the sambhur said, “Put on my tail, friend, and see how it becomes you,” and gave him his tail. But the hanuman monkey, as soon as he had put on the sambhur’s tail, climbed away up into a tree. Then the sambhur said, “Come down, friend, and give me back my tail,” but the hanuman monkey would not. Then the sambhur, wondering how he should make himself a tail, pulled out his own liver and made a tail of it and put it on. Men say that that is why even nowadays sambhur tail is so good and tastes like liver to eat. The Wild Boar and the Tiger.