Minah and the fox

Cik Othman lived with his wife and six daughters in a
small village on Pulau. Pinang. All his six daughters were pretty. But
although
many
men wanted to marry the girls they did not find anyone they liked. As time
went by and they became older, Cik Othman and his wife worried that
their daughters would never many.

One
day, Cik Othman and his wife were surprised to see a fox approaching their house.

"What do you want, Mr. Fox?" they asked.

"I
want to marry one of your daughters."

"Ha,
ha, ha! Who has ever heard of a fox marrying a girl?"

"Well, why don't you ask whether any of your
daughters would like to marry me? I may not be a man but I'm kind and honest."'

The eldest daughter refused. "What, marry a fox! Oh, no, no!" she cried.

All the other girls refused except the youngest
daughter, who
was called Minah. She was the most beautiful of all.

"I don't think Mr. Fox is so bad," she said.
"At
least,
he's
kind and honest which
is better than a lot of men."

There
was a great shout of laughter from her sisters.

After
she married Mr. Fox, all her family,
friends and neighbours teased her about her husband. But they
lived very happily together.

Minah
never knew what her husband did for a living. He use(] to leave the house at dawn arid return late at night. One day, she decided to follow him. He went to the
beach. She could hardly believe her
eyes. Her husband took off his fur and
changed into a handsome young man. He stepped into a boat and rowed
out to sea.

As soon as her husband was out of sight, she came out from behind the thick bushes where she
had been hiding and took away his fur. That evening, when her
husband returned, he could
not find his fur. Minah jumped out of
her hiding place. "Don't change back into a fox,', she cried. "You look so much better as you are." 

"Are
you ashamed of me then?" he asked.

"No,"
she answered, "but it would be nice for everyone to know that you're really a man."

As soon as her sisters knew that her husband had changed into a man, they became jealous. But Minah did not take any notice of them.

Then
her husband told her that he had to go away on
busi­ness. "I
shall be away for several months," he said, "but when I return
I shall be a rich man."

Minah was very obedient. Although she was
not happy, She
allowed her husband to go.

Her sisters were very pleased. "Your husband has
left you," they
told her. "He'll never come back. Perhaps he has changed into a fox again."

However,
one day the villagers came running to
her house to tell her that her husband was returning. He was leading back
a fleet of ships full of
treasure—silk, golden plates, jade and precious stones.

Minah
dressed herself in her best clothes
and went to the beach to wait for her
husband. Her sisters went with her.

Suddenly, her sisters seized her, and bound and gagged her so tightly that she could not move.
They put her in a boat and pushed it
out to sea.

Her husband's fleet approached. The first ship passed without seeing her. Ship after ship
passed in this way. The last ship was her husband's ship, decorated with
brightly-coloured flags.

"Stop," her husband ordered. "What is that
boat over
there?"

When the boat came
alongside, he recognized his wife ly­ing
at the bottom of the boat.

"Minah,
what has happened?" he called out.

He
jumped down into the boat and set her free. He carried her back to his ship.
When she felt a little better, she told her husband everything that had happened.

"Really
your sisters are very wicked," her husband said. "We must teach them
a good lesson." He told her to stay in his cabin.

When
he landed, Minah's five sisters were waiting for him, dressed in their best
clothes. "Where's my wife?" he asked.

"We don't know," they said. "We saw her go
to the beach
but we didn't see her again after that."

They gave a big dinner for him which was attended by many rich and important people. As
they served him with the best food and wine, he told them of his adventures, and
how he had captured a pirate ship full of treasure.

"As
I was approaching the harbour," he said, "I saw a small boat floating
in the water. There was a young woman in it who had been tied up by robbers and
left to die."

He
clapped his hands, and some of his men brought _in his wife. Minch
was dressed ⁱⁿ shining silk with sparkling jewels in her hair. Her
sisters almost fainted.

"I'm
not going to hand you over to the police," Minah's hus­band told them.
"But I want you to leave this village and never return again. I hope this will
be a good lesson to you for the rest of your lives."

No
one knows where the sisters went but Minch and her husband lived happily ever
after.

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