The louse cried out, “Oh, no! Who will ever marry you?” And so saying, she whipped her head around and moved on.

On the road she met a rat.

He asked ever so nicely, “Louse, O Louse, where are you going?”

To which the louse replied, “To marry another!”

The rat asked, “Will you marry me?”

The louse replied, “How will you prove your love for me?”

The rat leaped with love and told her, “I will dress you in the robes of a queen, feed you the richest puddings and the most delectable sweets, and sing you a lovely lullaby: Koot, koot!”

Hearing this the louse’s cheeks reddened, and she pulled her veil low over her face. Then in a modest voice she replied. “Yes, I will marry you!”

The rat and the louse were married then and there. They lived together quite happily. The louse was pleased with her queenly robes. And the rat fed her puddings and sweets, and sweets and puddings, and still more puddings and sweets.

Now, the louse adored a special kind of sweet. It is called goolgool and is made by frying raw sugar cakes in sesame oil. They taste especially good warm and fresh from the pan.

The louse ate so many warm, fresh goolgool sweets that sesame oil and raw sugar began to flow in her blood and clog her veins. She started breaking out in itchy patches that covered her whole body. She scratched and rubbed her skin with her sharp claws until blood began oozing out.

The rat tried everything to cure his wife. He did all sorts of prayers and penances, but none of them worked. The itching just grew worse. It grew so bad, in fact, that it turned into leprosy. The skin all over her body began rubbing off.