A villager once deposited five hundred ploughshares with a friend in the town, but when he came to claim them, he was told that they had been eaten by mice, and was shown the dung the mice had left behind. Some time later the villager took his friend’s son to bathe, hid him in a house, and reported to the townsman that the boy had been carried off by a hawk. When he was taken before the judge, who was the Bodhisatta, he protested that in a place where mice ate ploughshares a hawk could easily carry off a boy. The Bodhisatta settled their dispute (J.ii.181 ff).

The introductory story is similar to that of No.1 above.