and ran until he fell down a cliff and was killed. How the Villagers tried in vain to put an end to Apfuho. The villagers, meaning to put an end to Apfuho, took him with them down to a big pond. Then when they got to the water they all began swinging out over the pool on a creeper swing. They made Apfuho use the swing last and went away and left him, thinking he would fall off into the middle of the pond and be drowned. Apfuho kept swinging and swinging and could hardly hold on any longer, when he espied a man and a woman wearing fine ornaments and leading a mithan by a rope. He saw that they were an eloping couple and called out to them, “Who are you? There is a beautiful breeze here which makes swinging very pleasant. Take off your ornaments and put them on the ground and tie up the mithan. Then pull me in with a hooked stick and come and have a swing yourselves.” So they did as Apfuho told them, and took their ornaments off and put them down and pulled Apfuho in with a forked stick, and both began to swing. But when they asked Apfuho to pull them in, instead of doing so he let them fall into the water and drown. Then Apfuho put on their ornaments and took their mithan and went up to the village. And the villagers were astonished and said, “Where have you come from with those ornaments and that mithan, Apfuho?” And he said to them, “In the middle of the pond there are many ornaments and many mithan too. I only brought away these. If you too want to get some you should go and dive into the pond.” Then all the villagers said to him in chorus, “Take me, Apfuho; take me, Apfuho.” So a few days later Apfuho led the villagers in a body down to the water. There he picked them up one by one and threw them in. Of the men who sank quietly he said, “The ornaments and mithan he gets won’t be very good.” But when people struggled hard, with the water pouring from their mouth and nose, he said, “The ornaments and mithan he gets will be splendid.” So he let all the people of the village whom he had thrown into the water drown. [199] Now a blind old woman was stumbling along, feeling her way by the water’s edge. Apfuho put an old worn dao in front of her, and when she found it as she groped she said, “Well, if a person like me can find this, people with no infirmities will get a lot.” Then Apfuho went up to her and said, “Now, old woman, you go in too. What are you doing on the edge?” and with these words he caught her and threw her into the middle of the pond so that she was drowned. The audience always appreciates a play upon words such as occurs in the story of Apfuho and the Old Woman. All Nagas love a pun. A good one is immortal. Ao women—a most pugnacious section of the human race—pun on the names of their adversaries most elaborately. In some Lhota stories practically the whole point depends on a pun. The following is an example. The Old Man and His Dogs.