Now it happened once that five hundred shipwrecked traders were cast ashore near the city of these she-goblins. The goblins came up to them and enticed them, till they brought them to their city; those whom they had caught before, they bound with magic chains and cast them into the house of torment. Then the chief goblin took the chief man, and the others took the rest, till five hundred had the five hundred traders; and they made the men their husbands. Then in the night time, when her man was asleep, the chief she-goblin rose up, and made her way to the house of death, slew some of the men and ate them. The others did the same. When the eldest goblin returned from eating men's flesh, her body was cold. The eldest merchant embraced her, and perceived that she was a goblin. [129] "All the five hundred of them must be goblins!" he thought to himself: "we must make our escape!"

So in the early morning, when he went to wash his face, he bespake the other merchants in these words. "These are goblins, and not human beings! As soon as other shipwrecked men can be found, they will make them their husbands, and will eat us; come--let us escape!"

Two hundred and fifty of them replied, "We cannot leave them: go ye, if ye will, but we will not flee away."

Then the chief trader with two hundred and fifty, who were ready to obey him, fled away in fear of the goblins.

Now at that time, the Bodhisatta had come into the world as a flying horse , white all over, and beaked like a crow, with hair like munja grass , possessed of supernatural power, able to fly through the air. From Himalaya he flew through the air until he came to Ceylon. There he passed over the ponds and tanks of Ceylon, and ate the paddy that grew wild there. As he passed on thus, he thrice uttered human speech filled with mercy, saying--"Who wants to go home? who wants to go home? "The traders heard his saying, and cried--"We are going home, master!" joining their hands, and raising them respectfully to their foreheads. "Then climb up on my back," said the Bodhisatta. Thereat some of

them climbed up, some laid hold of his tail, and some remained standing, with a respectful salute. Then the Bodhisatta took up even those who stood still saluting him, and conveyed all of them, even two hundred and fifty, to their own country, and set down each in his own place; then he went back to his place of dwelling.

And the she-goblins, when other men came to that place, slew those two hundred and fifty who were left, and devoured them.

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