A widow lived with her two daughters and a little son. She had to visit her mother in a far-off village and decided to take her son with her. She told her daughters to be careful and went away.
On the way, a panther ate up the widow and her son. He wore her clothes and put on her spectacles and went to her house. When he knocked, the widow’s daughters found her big eyes, a spotted face and large paws strange. So, they wouldn’t open the door.
“I’ve walked a long distance and I’m tired,” said the panther. So, finally the daughters opened the door. But soon, they realised that this wasn’t their mother.
“We must escape!” they whispered.
They crept out at night and climbed up a tree. Then they called the panther out to watch a wedding celebration in the neighbourhood. He couldn’t climb up the tree, so they let down a basket on a rope and swung him in it so hard that it hit the tree. The panther jumped out and ran away.
The girls sat crying on the doorstep. A needle-vendor saw them and learnt that their mother and brother had been killed by a panther. “He’s sure to return to kill us too!” wept the girls.
He gave them needles and told them to stick them into the armchair with the points up. They got a turtle from another hawker who told them to put it in the water-tub. An egg-seller gave them an egg to put under the ashes on the hearth.
Then a man gave them a scorpion and told them to put it behind the hearth in the kitchen. Finally came a man selling wooden clubs and gave two to hang over the door to the street. The girls did what they were told.
That evening, the panther came and sat down on the armchair. The needles poked him all over. He ran to the kitchen to light the fire to see what had poked him. As he lit it, the scorpion in the hearth stung him.
The egg burst in the heat and the ashes and embers flew up, blinding him. He ran to the water-tub to wash his eyes. The turtle bit his hand as soon as he put it in to scoop up water!
Frightened out of his wits, the panther ran out of the door into the street. The clubs hit him hard and that finished the panther!
