Once upon a time wild pigs damaged a man’s crops very badly, so he went down to hunt them, and wounded one with his spear. This he tracked and tracked till he came to the house of Lichao, the old man guardian of wild pigs. There he found two maidens feeding the pig he had wounded. They asked him what he had come for, but he was afraid to tell the truth and say that he was tracking a wild pig that he had wounded, so he replied, “Hearing that there were two beautiful maidens at your house I came to see, hoping that I might take one as my wife.” Then they told him to come another day, so he departed. When the man came a little later Lichao made his slave-girl put on beautiful ornaments and fine clothes, but his real daughter he made to sit all in rags and dirty in the outside room. But the man was not to be deceived. He loved Lichao’s daughter and would only take her. [212] Now Lichao used to turn into a tiger and eat human flesh. Therefore he set his son-in-law hard tasks, meaning to devour him if he did not fulfil them. But when she knew this the maiden said to him, “Whatever task my father gives you to perform, tell me and I will reveal to you his purpose.” So one day Lichao said to the man, “Go and pick the leaves of kotyoh thorns and koremyoi thorns, and bring them without a single leaf being torn and without a single scratch on your body. If you do this I will let you depart with my daughter.” Then the girl said to her husband, [213] “If you come home with the slightest scratch on your body, or with a single leaf torn, my father will devour you.” So her husband went and picked the leaves without a single one being torn and without scratching his body in the least, and rolled them into a very tight bundle and brought and gave them to Lichao. Then Lichao said, “Only that amount will not be enough for us,” but when he opened the bundle to look, the leaves covered all the ground in front of his house. A few days later Lichao said, “If you can catch and tie up one of my pigs alone I will let you take my daughter and go,” and with these words gave him a length of unsplit cane. Then the man fell to thinking how he could catch one of the pigs, for they were wild pigs; and his wife said to him, “If you cannot catch a pig my father will devour you.” At last he caught a pig, and his wife beat the cane on the ground to fray it and gave it to him. Thus holding the pig with one hand he pulled off strips of cane with the other and bound the pig fast. Then Lichao let him take his daughter and go.