20. The Frog That Lost His Wife

20. THE FROG 1 THAT LOST HIS WIFE

A Frog living with his grandmother took a wife. He did nothing all day but swim about in the river whooping and his grandmother kept saying to him, "Your wife will be taken away from you." One day he went into the river and swam about whooping all day long. His grandmother covered his wife up in a mortar and was sitting down when people came in search of the Frog's wife and said to the woman, "Where is she?" But she answered, "I have not seen her." When she told them that, they hunted about until they pushed over the mortar and disclosed her, and they caught her and carried her away.

The grandmother sat there all the rest of that day saying, "Warts-on-the-body's wife, his wife," and when the Frog came home she said, "To-day they have carried off the woman just as I told you they would." The Frog answered, "Wa, wa, wa, I am angry. Wa, wa, wa, give me my leggings." She gave them to him; he put them on and said, "Give me my garters." She gave them to him and he put them on. "Give me my belt," he said, and she gave it to him and he put it on. Then the two started off. Frog went on, went on in the direction in which the woman had been taken following his grandmother. Following the people, they went leaping along. Presently they came to a big square ground where people had gathered and when these people saw them they said, "Why is that warty Frog coming here?" So they caught him by the arm and threw him "plup" into a gully. He fell down the hill, "bokts." They also caught his grandmother by the arm and threw her "plup" in the same direction, and "bokts," she fell near him. They lay there for a while, then came to life, poked up their heads and went straight westward.