The Fiend Who Washed His Feet
[Inside Book 5. Ill-Considered Action.]
In a certain forest lived a fiend named Cruel. One day he met a Brahman in his wanderings, climbed on his shoulder, and said: "Now go ahead."
So the terrified Brahman started off with him. But on observing that the fiend's feet were soft as a lotus-heart, he asked him: "Sir, why are your feet so tender?"
And the fiend replied: "I am under a vow never to touch the ground with my feet until I have washed them."
Soon the Brahman, while meditating a plan of escape, came to a lake. Here the fiend said: "Sir, do not stir from this spot until I come forth from the lake after bathing and worshiping the god."
Thereupon the Brahman thought: "He will be sure to eat me after his worship. I will hurry away. For he will not follow me with unwashed feet."
And when he did so, the fiend, not daring to break his vow, did not follow.
"And that is why I say:
A prudent man should always ask
What is beyond his ken:
A dreadful fiend the Brahman caught,
But let him go again."
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