In the days of our ancestors there lived a woman called Lankongrhoni. She had a son who was very handsome. His name was Arilao. All the girls admired him only and wished to marry him. They cared nothing for the other men. So all the men of the village planned to kill him treacherously. They agreed that on any day when they should all go down to the river to poison fish, whoever failed to come was to be fined a big pig. Two or three days later they went down. Then Arilao’s mother said to him, “Son, do not go.” But he said, “Do you want us to lose our big pig, mother?” and went. And the men felled a tree on the river bank and hewed a trough out of it and said, “Let every man lie in the trough in turn and see if he looks a fine man.” So they each lay down in turn, but as each man lay in the trough the others kept repeating, “You don’t look nice, you don’t look nice.” At last they said, “Let Arilao lie down,” and made him get into the trough, and calling out, “Arilao looks nice; we are pounding up Arilao, we are pounding up Arilao,” they pounded him up with the fish poison. Now Arilao had a friend, and he was very sad because Arilao had been killed that day, and waited weeping further down stream. Soon the finger-nail of his friend Arilao came floating down and lodged against him. Then he said, “Is this all there is left of my friend?” and with these words lifted the nail off the water, and wrapping it in a leaf slipped it into his belt. The villagers made a fine haul of fish, but Arilao’s friend was so sad that he did not trouble to catch a single one. When the villagers trooped off up towards the village he hung back to the last.