Mr Spider Gets Into Trouble Again

This tale has been adapted from the original for readability:

An old woman owned a sheep, but she was too frail to travel on her own. So she announced that she would give the sheep to anyone willing to carry her wherever she needed to go. Word spread quickly, and plenty of people came to look her over, but once they realised what the job involved, their courage failed them and they slipped away. Then Spider heard about the offer and, thinking only of the reward, hurried straight to her. He asked for the work, and the old woman explained her bargain. Spider agreed at once, took the sheep, killed it, ate it, and cheerfully told her he was ready to carry her anywhere she liked. What he did not know was that the old woman could change herself in strange ways, making her arms and legs grow as long as she pleased, or draw them back again.

When she told Spider she wanted to go to another town, he hoisted her onto his back. At once she stretched out her arms and legs, long as branches, and wrapped them around him again and again until he was bound tight. Spider tried to wriggle free, but she held him fast, and he could not run. Still, Spider was Spider, and he did not like being trapped. As they walked along the road, he asked her, as casually as he could, what she feared more than anything in the world. The old woman answered that she feared the Manekky people above all else. Not long after, Spider heard a bird calling from the trees, and he seized his chance. He pointed ahead and cried out that the Manekky were coming. The old woman panicked at once and begged him to carry her off the road and hide her until they had passed. Spider slipped into the bush and took her to the foot of a large tree, where she climbed down from his back. Spider told her he would go and see if the danger had gone by, then he walked away and never came back. He left her there, alone, and laughed to himself as he went.

Months later, Spider was walking along the same road with a girl he hoped to marry. Wanting to show off and make her laugh, he told her to wait, then darted into the bush, meaning to fetch something to frighten her for a joke. He returned to the place where he had abandoned the old woman and found her long dead. He bent to pick up her dried skull, planning to spring it on the girl, but the moment his hand touched it, the skull jumped up and clamped onto his nose. He yanked and pulled, but it would not come off. He called to the girl to come and look, then thought better of it, too ashamed to be seen. At last he stumbled back onto the road with the skull stuck fast to his face. The girl took one look at him and recoiled in fear and disgust, and from that day on she wanted nothing to do with Spider.

Spider tried everything to remove it, but the skull held tight. He did not want to go into town like that, but he had no choice, because sooner or later people would see him anyway. So he went to the blacksmith, and the blacksmith heated an iron until it was red-hot and used it to pry the skull loose at last.

And that is how Spider learned that if you take a job from someone, you had better look closely at who they are, and understand what you are agreeing to do. If you start the work, then abandon it to play tricks and act the rascal, trouble will find you, just as it found Spider.