Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/290

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274
Balochi Folklore.
friends. Our drink is from the flowing springs, our cup the leaf of the phish, our bed is the thorny bush, the hard ground our pillow. My white sandals are my steed, my son is the sharp arrow, my son-in-law the pointed dagger, my brethren the broad shield, my father the wide-wounding sword."

The same spirit is expressed in another poem:

"We will not dwell in the Indus plain; Phailāwagh will be our pasture. The salt stream of the Chāchar is our friend, it will taste sweet in our children's mouths, for these are the forts which keep the marauding Turk far from us."

So I am brought back again to the old legends and ballads with which I began, and I cannot do better than close with another quotation which gives the true spirit of all folklore. After relating the history of his tribe, the bard says:

"This is our track and story, this is the home of the true Rinds, a name exalted among tribes. If you do not believe it, no one has seen it with his eyes, there are no ancient documents or witnesses to attest it, but there are tales upon tales; everyone says that so it was."