The Gatiloke moves into the book's sixth part. A frog at the pond puffs itself up to match the great ox, and bursts for the striving. A donkey, seeing his master hug the puppy, leaps to be hugged himself, and is beaten with a stick for his trouble. A young man's beloved cat is made a maiden and his wife, yet every night the mice draw her back to her old nature. A dwarf dog, beaten for a soaked bundle of rice, wishes himself into a stick, and then into fire, rain, wind, an anthill, a buffalo and a rope, until he is a dwarf dog again. And a lost dog, made a lion by a hermit's mercy, plots against the very hand that raised him, and is made a dog again.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
The episode opens and closes with The Cello's Unfinished Promise as its theme, heard also briefly between the stories.
Chapters:
01:31 — The Frog and the Ox
04:52 — The Male Donkey Who Imitated the Puppy
07:56 — The Young Man Who Kept a Cat
12:50 — The Young Man Who Kept a Dwarf Dog
21:48 — The Dog That Lost Its Master, and the Great Hermit
From the Gatiloke by Suttantaprija Ind (1859–1924), Cambodia's treasury of Khmer folk tales, first published in parts in Phnom Penh in 1914–1921 — public domain, and told here in a fresh in-house English rendering made from the Khmer text, in the book's own order. Earlier holds stand as recorded in the collection's written register and in the descriptions of Parts 1–12: the question-chapter of the rascal who should be feared; Bhikkhu Sok, the Pnong teacher; the Singha-To who wanted the chief's daughter; the crocodile and the cart-driver; the hunter and the parrot; the fable of the old woman whom desire unmade; the abbot and his two students; the deer, the crow and the jackal; and the jackal and the elephant — each held back under house rule until it is ruled on by name. One further tale of the book's fifth part — the tale of the lion and the frog — is likewise held back under house rule: its close is a death baited and celebrated in the tale's open scene, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. One further tale of the book's fifth part — the tale of the rabbit and the tigress — is likewise held back under house rule: its climax is a sexual act done by guile on a trapped and unwilling other, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place. One further tale of the book's sixth part — the tale of the goatherd boy — is likewise held back under house rule: its close is a killing by beating in the tale's open scene, and such a tale is not read until it is ruled on; it stands recorded in the register, in its place.
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