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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and
+Water Country, by William C. Griggs
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and Water Country
+
+Author: William C. Griggs
+
+Release Date: May 15, 2010 [EBook #32375]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAN FOLK LORE STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Meredith Bach,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ SHAN FOLK LORE STORIES
+ FROM THE
+ HILL AND WATER COUNTRY
+
+ BY
+ WILLIAM C. GRIGGS, M. D.
+
+
+
+
+                           TO MY FRIEND
+                J. N. Cushing, D. D., F. R. A. S.
+ _Principal of the American Baptist College, Rangoon, and Senior
+           Shan Missionary, the greatest authority upon
+            Shan literature, and the translator of the
+                  Bible into that language, this
+                   little book is dedicated by_
+                            THE AUTHOR
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+The following stories have been taken from the great mass of unwritten
+lore that is to the black-eyed, brown-skinned boys and girls of the Shan
+mountain country of Burma what "Jack the Giant Killer" and "Cinderella"
+are to our own children.
+
+The old saw as to the songs and laws of a country may or may not be
+true. I feel confident, however, that stories such as these, being as
+they are purely native, with as little admixture of Western ideas as it
+was possible to give them in dressing them in their garment of English
+words, will give a better insight into what the native of Burma really
+is, his modes of thought and ways of looking at and measuring things,
+than a treatise thrice as long and representing infinitely more literary
+merit than will be found in these little tales; and at the same time I
+hope they will be found to the average reader, at least, more
+interesting.
+
+It may, perhaps, be not out of place to say a little of the "_hpeas_"
+who appear so frequently in these stories. The _hpea_ is the Burman
+_nat_, and is "a being superior to men and inferior to Brahmas, and
+having its dwelling in one of the six celestial regions" (Doctor
+Cushing's "Shan-English Dictionary"). They are universally worshiped by
+the inhabitants of Burma. If a man has fever, the best thing to do is
+to "_ling hpea_," that is, to feed the spirits, and the sufferer
+therefore offers rice, betel-nut, painted sticks, etc. Some kinds of
+_hpeas_ live in the sacred banyan trees, and frequently have I seen men,
+after a long day's march in the jungle, sit shivering on the ground when
+within an arm's length lay good dry fire-wood. It had fallen, however,
+from a tree in which lived a _hpea_, and not a man would dare touch it.
+Big combs of honey may be in the nests of the wild bees, but it is safe
+from the hungry traveler if it is sheltered by such a tree. Some watch
+over wells, tanks, and lakes, and it is notorious throughout the
+Southern Shan States, that a promising young American missionary, who
+was drowned while shooting, met his death by being dragged to the bottom
+of the lake by the guardian spirit, who had become incensed at him for
+killing a water-fowl on his domains.
+
+In Shan folk-lore the hero does not "marry and live happy ever after,"
+but he becomes the king of the country.
+
+ AMERICAN BAPTIST SHAN MISSION HOUSE,
+         BHAMO, BURMA, 1902.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ A LAUNG KHIT                                       9
+
+ HOW BOH HAN ME GOT HIS TITLE                      19
+
+ THE TWO CHINAMEN                                  32
+
+ THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS NANG KAM UNG            45
+
+ HOW THE HARE DECEIVED THE TIGER                   57
+
+ THE STORY OF THE TORTOISE                         66
+
+ THE SPARROW'S WONDERFUL BROOD                     78
+
+ HOW THE WORLD WAS CREATED                         85
+
+ HOW THE KING OF PAGAN CAUGHT THE THIEF            92
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ "_Each year at the Feast of Lights ... she prayed_"                   10
+
+ "_The man standing at the top of the tree was the long-lost
+ brother_"                                                             37
+
+ "_Again the cunning hare deceived the tiger_"                         63
+
+ "'_I am nothing but a tortoise swimming in the lake_'"                68
+
+ "_On his way he saw what seemed to be a bed of flowers_"              79
+
+
+
+
+FOLK LORE STORIES
+
+
+
+
+"A LAUNG KHIT."[1]
+
+
+Once upon a time there was a woman who lived in the State of Lai Hka.
+She was a very pious woman and always gave the best rice and _puc_ to
+the priests as they walked, rice _chattie_ in hand, through the city in
+the early morning. Every year when the girls and boys went to the river
+and filled their chatties with water to throw over the pagodas and idols
+to insure a good rainy season and abundant crops, she always had the
+largest bucket of the clearest water and threw it higher than anybody
+else. She carried the sweetest flowers to the _zayat_ every evening, and
+on worship days took rice in the prettiest of cups made of banana leaves
+and offered to the Gautamas in the idol-house.
+
+But she was not happy. When her neighbors went to the pagodas they had
+their little ones tied upon their backs or running at their sides, but
+she had no child whom she could take with her, none to whom she could
+tell stories of the great Lord Sa Kyah who rules over the spirits in the
+_hpea_ country, and so she was sad. She was getting old too, and often
+envied the women who lived near who had bright boys to run errands and
+girls to help in the house. Each year at the Feast of Lights, when she
+sent her little candle floating down the river, she prayed for a child,
+but in vain.
+
+At last she made a pilgrimage to a pagoda where folks said was a _parah_
+who would give anything that was asked of him. Bright and early she set
+out, and on her head as an offering she carried an image of a tiger and
+one of a man, and when she arrived at the pagoda she offered the images
+and prayed for a son.
+
+While she was praying at the pagoda, Lord Sa Kyah heard her, took pity
+on her, and promised her a son. But, alas! when he was born, to his
+mother's great sorrow, instead of being the beautiful boy she hoped for
+he was nothing but a frog.
+
+Lord Sa Kyah in order to comfort her, however, told her that her son was
+really a great _hpea_, and that after one year and seven months he would
+change into the most handsome man in all the hill and water country.
+
+All the women scoffed and made fun of the poor mother, and all through
+the village she was called Myeh Khit, or "Frog's Mother," but she bore
+their jeers in silence and never reviled in return.
+
+Now the king of the country had seven daughters. All were married except
+one, and one day Myeh Khit went to him to ask for this daughter in
+marriage for her son. The king was of course very angry that she should
+ask that his only remaining daughter should marry a frog, but he spoke
+deceitfully, called his daughter and asked her if she would be willing
+to accept a frog for a husband. Like a dutiful daughter she told him
+that she would "follow his words" and do as he wished, as she had no
+will apart from his.
+
+[Illustration: "Each year at the Feast of Lights ... she prayed." Page 10.]
+
+The king then called the woman and said: "O woman, I will give my only
+remaining daughter to your son, but I make one stipulation. You must
+build a road, paved and properly built, from the market-place to my
+palace; the sides must be decorated with painted bamboos, and the work
+must be done within seven days or you shall die. Now go, and prepare for
+the work, and at the end of the seven days I will make ready the
+marriage feast for my daughter or order the executioner to take off your
+head."
+
+In great distress Myeh Khit returned to her home and sat down on the
+floor of her house and wept. All day long she bewailed her hopeless
+condition. In vain her son asked her the cause of her sorrow. Afraid of
+grieving him she would not tell him; but at last when six out of the
+seven days had passed, and knowing the fate that awaited her on the
+morrow, she told him how she had gone to the king with her request, and
+the time being almost expired, that she must make ready to die on the
+morrow.
+
+"The executioner's sword has already been sharpened, my son," she said,
+"and to-day in bazaar they were talking of it, and promising to meet one
+another at the palace to-morrow when the sun should be overhead."
+
+As a last resource she made ready food and sweetmeats. She took paddy
+and placed it over the fire till the heat broke the husks and the pure
+white grains appeared. These she mixed with the whitest of sugar, and as
+she was too poor to own plates, she went into the jungle to where the
+new bamboo was bursting through its green prison, and taking the broad
+coverings of the new leaves she fashioned them into dishes and offered
+them with many prayers for help to Lord Sa Kyah.
+
+"Our lord knoweth that my son can do nothing," she cried. "He has not
+even hands to help, and what can our lord's slave do to avoid the great
+trouble to which I have arrived?"
+
+That night in the lovely _hpea_ country the mighty Lord Sa Kyah reclined
+on his golden throne of state. By and by the velvet mat became so hot
+that he could sit upon it no longer, and looking down he saw, squatting
+before him on the floor, a frog.
+
+"O our lord," said the frog, "I come to remind our lord that he is his
+slave's father. My mother, our lord's slave, has arrived at great
+sorrow, and unless our lord pities us and takes compassion on our lord's
+slave, she will arrive at destruction to-morrow. Graciously do this act
+of kindness, O chief of all the _hpeas_."
+
+Lord Sa Kyah took pity on his son and promised to help him. The four
+strongest spirits in his kingdom were four _hpeas_. They were twins and
+the name of the first two was Nan Ta Re and that of the second Hte Sa
+Kyung. These powerful spirits he ordered to complete the road during the
+night.
+
+The next morning when the king arose he looked forth from his palace
+and a most wonderful sight met his gaze. He rubbed his eyes, for he
+believed they deceived him. He pinched himself to see whether he was
+really awake or whether he was dreaming. For a wonderful thing had
+happened during the night, so wonderful, in fact, that one cannot be
+surprised that he thought it unreal.
+
+From the bazaar to the very gate of the palace was a broad, smooth road.
+On each side were brick walls covered with the whitest of cement, and
+decorated with the heads of lions, and two large griffins, built of
+brick and covered also with cement, guarded the entrance. They were more
+than twelve cubits high; their mouths were wide open and showed their
+terrible fangs, and their eyes looked upon the king with a stony glare.
+The road was paved with blocks of stone cut as smooth and laid as true
+as the cells of a honeycomb. There was one road for men, one for oxen,
+and yet another for horses. _Zayats_ had been built here and there so
+that travelers aweary could rest and be thankful, and over all was a
+wide canopy of white cloth that extended entirely from end to end and
+from side to side to protect the king from the sun when he should move
+along the road to observe its wonders more closely.
+
+In utter amazement he beat the gong that hung ready to his side with
+such vigor that _amats_, soldiers, attendants, and the people from the
+city, came rushing out of their houses to the palace gates expecting at
+least that the neighboring prince with whom they had long been at war
+had taken the city by surprise; but they, like the king, stood
+transfixed and speechless with wonder when they saw the road with its
+carvings and _zayats_ and the canopy with the golden border spread above
+all.
+
+The king called Myeh Khit. She came, and hidden in her turban was her
+son. The king had thought to punish this presumptuous woman by giving
+her an impossible task to do with a penalty that put her beyond the
+power of offending again, and was of course angry and disappointed that
+his scheme had been unsuccessful; but the occurrence had become the
+common talk of the market-place, and so he was obliged to carry out his
+part of the bargain, although it had gone contrary to his expectation
+and desires. So, much against his will, he called his daughter and gave
+an order that for seven days there was to be a feast in honor of the
+marriage of the princess.
+
+But when the rejoicings of the people were finished, Khit was not given
+permission to live in his father's palace but was sent with his wife and
+mother to live in the old house where he had been born.
+
+Six days after the marriage there was a feast at the pagoda, and the six
+daughters of the king went in state.
+
+They rode upon royal elephants; dancers danced before them; the golden
+umbrellas protected them from the sun; and everybody fell upon their
+knees and clasped their hands as the august personages went along. Their
+retinue filled the street when they stopped at the little house where
+their sister lived.
+
+"O sister," they called, "are you coming to the feast?" but the poor
+girl in great shame told them she could not come, and when they had
+gone, she sat on the floor with her face in her hands and gave way to
+her grief.
+
+While she was sobbing, her husband approached and told her not to be
+sorrowful. "My father is the great Lord Sa Kyah," said he, "and he will
+give me anything I ask, so do not say, 'I am ashamed to go, as I have
+only a frog for a husband.' You shall yet see your proud father and
+unkind sisters bowing before you and offering you presents as they offer
+to gods."
+
+Seeing how distressed the poor girl really was, the Lord Sa Kyah took
+pity on them and descended to earth. He brought with him wonderful white
+clothes such as the _hpeas_ wear. They were brighter than the stars that
+shoot across the sky at night, or the lightning that flashes over the
+heavens during the hot season. He also gave them a magic stone, which if
+placed under their tongues, would enable them to fly wherever they
+wished.
+
+The next morning was the last day of the feast when the boat races would
+be rowed, when the horses of the king and his chief _amats_ would race
+for prizes, when the best jugglers would show their most wonderful
+tricks, and the best dancers would dance under the booths. In the midst
+of the fun and excitement a great shout rent the air: "The mighty Lord
+Sa Kyah is descending!" and right in the middle of the feasting there
+was a flash of brilliant light and two wonderful beings alighted. They
+were clothed in dazzling white, and flew swifter than when a kingfisher
+darts from a tree toward its prey in the water.
+
+Every one came crowding around as near as they dared, and upon their
+knees offered presents of food to the wonderful beings.
+
+First and foremost came the princesses, who bowed till their foreheads
+touched the dust; they lifted their clasped hands over their heads and
+turned away their faces while they offered the sweetest and most savory
+food to the visitors. But it was noticed that although the spirits ate
+the food offered by the _amats_ and common people, they would not eat
+that given by the princesses, but wrapped it up and placed it on one
+side.
+
+The next day the princesses came to their sister's house and derided
+her. "O wife of an animal," they cried, "you would not come to the
+feast, and so you lost the chance of seeing the mighty Lord Sa Kyah
+descend from the _hpea_ country," and then they told of the wonderful
+sight, and again made fun of their unfortunate sister.
+
+Khit's wife smiled at them and then she said: "It is you who are
+unfortunate, not I. My husband is not the ugly animal you think him to
+be, but is a great and powerful _hpea_. It was not the Lord Sa Kyah who
+descended yesterday, but his son, my husband, and myself, and to prove
+my words, whose are these?" and she produced the very bundles of food
+that her sisters had offered the day before to the supposed ruler of all
+spirits.
+
+The sisters were surprised to see that she had the food there, but they
+laughed her to scorn when she told them of her husband.
+
+In order that his son should become mighty and famous, the Lord Sa Kyah
+sent one of his attendants to the king, and caused him to give an order
+to his children that they should have a boat race. The one who reached
+the winning post first and carried away the flag on its rattan pole was
+to be king in his room, and the one who came in last was to be slave to
+the fortunate one.
+
+There were great preparations among the servants of the six princesses,
+and many wagers were made as to who would be successful, but none wished
+to wager as to who would come in last, as all knew it would be the
+youngest sister.
+
+"She has no boat," said they, "and has no servants to make one, or money
+to buy one. Even if she had, what could she do? Her husband has no
+hands, how could he row against and defeat the swift boatmen who have
+been called by the princesses?"
+
+The king gave seven days in which his daughters were to prepare for the
+race, and during that time the shouting of the various crews as they
+practised on the lake was heard from early morning till the sun dropped
+behind the mountains, but only six boats were seen.
+
+The race was to take place on a lake at the outskirts of the city, and
+on the morning of the seventh day, when the six princesses took their
+stations they were surprised to see that there was a seventh boat there,
+but they did not know that it was a magic boat sent by the Lord Sa Kyah
+from the _hpea_ country, and that the sixteen rowers were not men, but
+_hpeas_.
+
+The course was over a thousand cubits to a post, around it, and return,
+and so fast did the magic boat glide through the water that it had
+covered the entire distance and the captain had laid the flag at the
+king's feet before any of the other boats had reached the first pole
+that showed half the distance.
+
+But something even more wonderful than that had taken place. During the
+race, the time set apart during which the son of Myeh Khit was to have
+the form of a frog had expired, and, lo! he was now the most handsome
+man in all the hill and water country. He had a crown of gold upon his
+head, and the magic white clothes such as only _hpeas_ wear were on his
+person. His wife was clothed in as beautiful a manner, and the king, at
+last seeing the mistake he had made in treating him so badly, knelt on
+the shore and asked: "Which lord is the son of his slave?" by which he
+meant, which of the lords was the one to whom he had given his daughter.
+
+But the Lord Khit, as he was now called, did not take a mean revenge on
+his unkind brothers and sisters, and when they came on their knees
+begging for their lives, and asking the privilege of being his slaves,
+he took compassion on them, and instead of ordering them to immediate
+execution, made them his _amats_.
+
+This is why the Shans who live in the hill and water country worship Sau
+Maha Khit.
+
+[1] "'A Laung,' one who is progressing toward a divine state; an
+incipient deity."--_Cushing's "Shan Dictionary," p. 586._
+
+
+
+
+HOW BOH HAN ME GOT HIS TITLE.
+
+
+Boh Han Me was one of the greatest generals who ever lived in the hill
+and water country. Just what his original name was nobody knows now, but
+this story tells how he gained his title.
+
+One day he went into the jungle with his wife and his two children to
+gather _nau_, which is a kind of _puc_ made from the young bamboo
+shoots. They were very successful in getting it, and were just on the
+point of going home with their loads, when right before them appeared a
+large black bear. The bear opened wide his mouth and roared, showing his
+immense white teeth and great throat, and came ambling toward them
+growling all the while in the fiercest kind of way.
+
+Now as soon as the man saw the bear he just threw away all the _nau_
+that he had in his hands and ran for his life, calling on his wife to do
+the same. The two children followed their father and left their mother
+to get out of her trouble as best she could. She, however, was as brave
+as her husband was cowardly, and instead of running away, she took a
+handful of the longest of the shoots and thrust them down the open
+throat of the bear and killed him. She then took the short sword that
+they had brought from home to cut the shoots, and with it she skinned
+the bear, cut him up, and made the skin into a sack in which to carry
+the meat.
+
+Meanwhile her cowardly husband did not stop running till he reached the
+city in which he lived, and then he told all his neighbors how he had
+been in the jungle and a great bear had attacked them; how he had fought
+bravely for a long while, but at last it had killed his wife and eaten
+her. The neighbors were very sorry for him, but advised him to get home
+and fasten all the doors and windows before the spirit of his wife would
+have time to get in, for they said, seeing that she was killed when he
+was with her, her ghost would without doubt try and gain admittance to
+the house and haunt it. Once in, it would be very difficult to get her
+out.
+
+The man, more frightened than ever, ran home as fast as he could and
+called his children to bring all the rice that was already cooked into
+the house, and then they fastened up the two doors and the one window
+with bamboos and rattan. There was to be a feast in the city that night,
+and the two children wanted to go and see the fun, but their father was
+in such a fright that he would not give them permission to go, or even
+to look out through the holes in the sides of the house where the bamboo
+matting had come unfastened and bulged away from the posts.
+
+By this time the sun had set and it was just getting dark, and the man,
+tired with the hunt in the jungle and the excitement after, was just
+going to sleep when he heard a voice that he recognized as his wife's
+calling to be let in.
+
+"Husband, _oie_!" it called, "open the door and let me in. I am very
+tired and hungry, and want rice and sleep. Get up quickly. Why have you
+fastened up the window and doors with bamboos and rattan? There are no
+bad men around; any one would think you were afraid thieves were coming
+to-night."
+
+The man was frightened almost to death when he heard his wife's voice,
+for he felt sure it was her ghost coming to haunt him, so he called out:
+
+"Ghost of my wife, _oie_! I will not let you in. If I did I would never
+be able to get you out again. You want to haunt this house. I will not
+let you in. Go away, go away!"
+
+In vain the woman told him that she was indeed his wife, that she was
+not a ghost at all, but had killed the bear and had his skin on her back
+with the meat in it, and begged to be let in; the man would not believe
+her and so she had to wait outside. All night long she called and begged
+her husband to let her in, but in vain. When the sun had risen, however,
+he felt a little braver, and so he put his head out through the thatch,
+and saw that it really was his wife and not her ghost. With great joy he
+ran down, opened the door, and let her in, but when his wife told him
+how she had killed the bear, he again became frightened.
+
+"We have arrived at great trouble," said he. "When the people hear that
+you have killed a bear, they will most surely kill you. What shall we do
+to escape and be freed from the impending punishment?"
+
+But his wife was a clever woman, and when the neighbors came in to ask
+how it was that she had not been killed, she told a wonderful story, how
+through the bravery of her husband she had been saved; that he had seen
+the bear, and by his bravery, that was so great it was good to marvel
+at, it had been driven off. The neighbors were very pleased that so
+brave a man lived in their quarter, and he became famous, people calling
+him Gon Han Me, or "the man who saw the bear."
+
+Gon Han Me was very proud of his title, as many other vain people have
+been proud of titles they never earned, but it came near costing him his
+life, and this was the way it led him into great danger. One day a large
+cobra fell into the well that was in the yard before the chief door of
+the king's palace, and everybody was afraid to draw water because of it.
+When the _amats_ told the king that a cobra was in the well, he gave
+orders that it was to be taken out, but nobody was brave enough to go
+down the well and kill the snake. The chief _amat_ was in great
+distress. He feared the king would deprive him of his office if the
+snake were not killed immediately. He was not brave enough to descend
+himself, and money, promises, and threats were of no avail to induce any
+one else to go. Everybody declined to take the risk, and said: "Of what
+use is money, or horses, or buffaloes, to a man bitten by a cobra? Will
+that free him from death? Nay, go yourself."
+
+The poor _amat_ was at his wits' end, when at last one of the attendants
+told the king that in the quarter of the city where his sister lived,
+was a man so brave that he was called Gon Han Me, and said he: "If a man
+is brave enough to see a bear in the jungle and not be afraid, surely
+he will dare go down the well and kill the cobra."
+
+The king was much pleased with the attendant for showing a way out of
+the difficulty. "He surely is the man we want," said he; "go and call
+him immediately to come and destroy the snake."
+
+The attendant of the king came to Gon Han Me and said: "Brother, _oie_!
+the king has heard that you are a very brave man, so brave, in fact,
+that your neighbors all talk of you and you have arrived at the rank of
+being called 'Gon Han Me.' Now in the royal well there is a snake, a
+cobra, which as you know is called the worst snake that lives. It is a
+very wicked snake and everybody has arrived at great trouble because of
+it. Nobody dares draw water there, and the king has given orders that it
+is to be killed. However, no one at the palace is brave enough to
+descend the well and kill the snake, but when his majesty heard of your
+great bravery, he sent me to order you to come immediately, descend the
+well, and kill the cobra. He will give you great rewards, and besides
+will make you a _boh_ (officer) in the royal army."
+
+When Gon Han Me heard this he was in great distress and called his wife.
+"Wife, _oie_!" he said; "this unlucky name will certainly be the cause
+of my death. It will truly kill me. The king has called me to descend
+the royal well and kill a wicked snake that is frightening everybody in
+the palace. I am not brave enough to go. If I do not go, the king will
+have me executed. I shall be killed whichever I do. If I go the snake
+will kill me, if I do not go the king will kill me. I shall arrive at
+destruction, and all because of this miserable name."
+
+The wife pondered awhile and then advised her husband to get dressed in
+his best clothes and go to the palace, look down the well to see what it
+was like, then make some excuse to come back home and she would tell him
+what next to do.
+
+The man was soon dressed in his best clothes, and was already going down
+the steps of the house when his wife called out that he had left his
+_hsan_ behind him. Now when the Shans go into the jungle, or on a
+journey, they carry with them a rice-bag, or _hsan_. This is a long
+narrow bag, more like a footless hose than anything else, and when
+filled with rice it is worn around the waist, where it looks like a big
+snake coiled around. Now Gon Han Me was very proud of his rice-bag, for
+instead of being made of plain white cloth, as is the custom, it was
+embroidered all over with different colored wools, and was so long that
+it went around his waist several times.
+
+He was so excited and terrified that when he reached the well he did not
+notice that one end had been unfastened and was dragging on the ground,
+and as he went to the well to look over, it caught around his legs,
+overbalanced him, and he went head first into the well with a tremendous
+splash. The next instant the snake lifting its head darted at him, and
+all that the men above, who were waiting with breathless interest to
+discover how the battle would end, could hear, was an infinite amount
+of splashing, yells, and hissing. Gon Han Me never knew how it was, but
+in the fall his _hsan_ became twisted around the neck of the snake, and
+in a few minutes it was choked to death.
+
+The man for a while could hardly believe that the snake was really dead.
+It seemed too good to be true, but he came to the conclusion that his
+_kam_[2] was good, and he would yet be a great and famous man. He
+therefore assumed a heroic air, and at the top of his voice called to
+the men at the mouth of the well:
+
+"Brethren, _oie_! I have killed the snake and thus freed you from the
+great danger from which you were suffering. I will now throw up the end
+of this long rice-bag. Do you catch it and pull me and the dead snake up
+to dry ground." He thereupon threw up the end of the embroidered _hsan_,
+the men caught it, and the next minute he appeared with the dead snake
+in his hand.
+
+The king was very pleased with Gon Han Me for his brave act. He gave him
+great rewards as he had promised, and also gave order that in future he
+should be known by the name of "Boh Han Me," or "the officer who saw the
+bear."
+
+Some time after this there was war between the king and the ruler of the
+next province. There was a great council called and it was unanimously
+agreed that as Boh Han Me was the bravest man in the country, he should
+be appointed as commander-in-chief.
+
+When the message came to his house, however, it caused him great
+distress, for as he told his wife, he did not want to be killed in the
+least; he did not wish to run the risk of being killed or even hurt.
+Besides he had never been on horseback in his life. He had a buffalo
+that ploughed his fields, and it is true that occasionally, tired with
+the day's work, he had ridden home on its back when the sun sank into
+the west, but he was sure that if he got on the back of a horse it would
+immediately divine that he was ignorant of the art of riding, did not
+_mau_ as he said, and he would be thrown to the ground and hurt, killed
+maybe. Who could tell?
+
+Again his clever wife came to the rescue. "You must go to the fight
+whether you want to or not," said she. "The king has given orders and he
+must be obeyed. To disobey the king is more dangerous than seeing a bear
+or even fighting a snake, so go you must. As to riding, that is easily
+managed. Bring your pony here and I will show you how to ride without
+danger."
+
+On the never-to-be-forgotten day when the whole family went into the
+jungle to gather _nau_, they were very poor, but since the fight with
+the snake in the well, they had become rich, and so now the _boh_ had
+servants to do his bidding, and he therefore called one of them to
+saddle his pony and bring it to the door of his house. This was soon
+done. He took his seat, and then his wife took long pieces of rawhide
+and fastened his legs, from ankle to knee, on both sides to the stirrups
+and girths. She knotted them securely so that there would be no chance
+of his falling off his steed. He was very pleased that he had such a
+clever wife, who could help him out of every trouble into which he might
+fall, and rode away well pleased with himself, and soon reached the
+place where the soldiers were assembled awaiting his appearance before
+beginning the march.
+
+To have seen him nobody would have thought that he was frightened sick.
+He sat up bravely, and you would have thought that he was the best
+horseman in all the hill and water country, but all the time he was
+turning over in his mind the advice given by his wife when they talked
+it over the night before. This was what she said to him: "Now, when you
+get to the soldiers, see them start off. Give all the orders in a very
+loud, pompous tone. Talk high, and they will think you _mau_ very much
+(are very clever). Then you can easily find some excuse to get to the
+rear, and you must stay there till the fighting is all finished."
+
+There was one party to this arrangement, however, that they had both
+failed to take into account when making their plans, and that was the
+pony. They neither remembered that there was a possibility of the pony
+taking it into his head to carry his master where the latter did not
+want to go, but that was just what happened, for, when the pony saw all
+the other horses and the men marching off, he too commenced to move
+forward. He was a fine big pony and was accustomed to head processions,
+not to come at the tail end, and so he started off of his own accord.
+Now we have said that his rider had never been on horseback before, but
+had often ridden his buffalo from the paddy field when the day's work
+of ploughing was over. When a man on a buffalo wishes to stop, he jerks
+the rope that is fastened to the animal's nose, and obedient to the
+signal, it stops. So, when the _boh_ found his steed forging ahead a
+little faster than suited him, he jerked the reins, expecting the pony
+to stop, but to his consternation, he found it go all the faster. He
+jerked harder, the pony broke into a quick trot. He jerked again, the
+pony began to gallop. He was now thoroughly frightened and called out at
+the top of his voice, but this only frightened the pony more and it
+began to gallop just as fast as ever it could, and worse than all, it
+headed straight for the enemies' soldiers, whom he could see in the
+distance getting ready to receive him. He cursed his wife with all his
+heart. If he could only fall off! She had taken too good precautions
+against that. He pulled and tugged, but the rawhide was strong; the
+knots were too tight; and every minute brought him nearer to his
+enemies. He could hear the shouts of his friends in the distance getting
+fainter and fainter as the distance increased, calling him to come back.
+How he wished he could! He swayed from side to side, first on one flank
+then on the other. The pony now had its head down between its knees, the
+bit between its teeth, and was tearing along like the wind. It would be
+hard to say which was the more frightened, the horse or its rider; each
+frightened the other. But there was a lower depth yet to be reached. In
+jumping over a hole the saddle slipped to the side, the next instant
+away it went, turned, and saddle, rider, and all slipped clear around,
+and Boh Han Me found himself still securely lashed to the saddle,
+squarely under his horse instead of on it.
+
+Meanwhile in the camp of the enemy a council of war was being held. "Can
+any one tell me," asked the king, "who commands our foes?"
+
+"Our lord," said one of the _amats_, "it is a man who has been picked
+out of the whole army, and is the bravest man who ever drew a sword. He
+is called Boh Han Me because he conquered a great fierce bear in the
+jungle. He also went down a well in the royal palace and killed the
+largest and fiercest snake ever seen in all the hill and water country."
+
+The king was much disquieted when he heard of the prowess of this man,
+and was pondering whether it would not be better to fight with silver
+than steel, and offer a great reward to any man in the enemies' camp who
+would bring to him the head of this doughty soldier, when he heard a
+great shout. He sprang to the tent door and looked anxiously out. All
+eyes were bent in one direction and a look of intense wonder, not
+unmixed with fear, sat on each face. The king naturally expected to see
+the whole army of the enemy approaching in overwhelming numbers, but he
+shared the wonder of his soldiers when he saw, not an army, but one
+single man dashing toward him. The next instant the rider disappeared
+entirely, but the horse came on faster than before. Next instant there
+was the rider again, arms tossing in the air, hair streaming behind,
+only to disappear the following moment in the same mysterious way.
+
+The face of the king blanched with terror as he asked in a whisper, "Who
+is this man?"
+
+A hundred voices cried: "It is Boh Han Me, the bravest man alive! He has
+some charm that makes him invisible whenever he wishes, and he cannot be
+hurt by sword or arrow."
+
+Nothing spreads so quickly as a panic, and almost before the king was
+aware of it, he was carried away in the fierce rush to escape. His men
+were blind with fear; they threw away their arms; men and officers fled
+for their lives, their only thought to flee from that horse and its
+terrible rider who disappeared and reappeared in such an awful fashion,
+and in a few minutes the field was deserted and the whole army in full
+retreat.
+
+The horse by this time was exhausted. It stumbled, but regained its feet
+only to fall again immediately. It made another effort to struggle to
+its feet, but this time unsuccessfully, and then lay still on its side,
+its flanks heaving and its breath coming and going in quick sobs. Very
+cautiously Boh Han Me drew a knife and slowly cut one knot. The horse
+did not stir. Another followed, and soon one leg was freed. This made
+the task easier, and soon both legs were cut from their bonds and he
+sprang to his feet, bruised and sore, it is true, but no bones broken,
+and only too glad to be on solid earth again, and he vowed he would
+never from that day forth ever get on anything that moved faster than a
+buffalo.
+
+What the king said when he reached the place where the foes had encamped
+may be imagined. He declared that a man as brave as his general had
+never lived in any age or country. For one man to charge a whole army,
+and, what was more, drive it off too, was a thing good to marvel at, and
+Boh Han Me did the wisest thing he ever did in his life, he just held
+his peace. When they had gathered together the spoil they returned home
+with the hero by the side of the king. The latter gave him a grand
+palace with gold, silver, oxen, buffaloes, elephants, and slaves in
+abundance, and also the rank of Boh Hoh Soek, which is the highest rank
+of general in the army, and means, "head of all the troops." The happy
+man lived many, many years, but he kept his promise, and whenever he
+wished to travel he rode upon an elephant and never again as long as he
+lived got upon the back of a horse.
+
+[2] _Kam_, luck, or fate.
+
+
+
+
+THE TWO CHINAMEN.
+
+
+Ages ago, when this world was new, having been created but a short
+while, two Chinese boys left their native country and started out on
+their travels to discover things new and strange. After wandering for
+many days they came to the hill and water country where the Shans live.
+Here they found a monastery, where lived very wise and learned priests,
+who instructed them in many ways.
+
+They lived here some time and won the esteem of the head priest to such
+an extent that he showed them a magic sword and bow that had lain in the
+monastery many years waiting for somebody to carry away. The law was
+that the man who could bend the bow or could draw the sword from its
+sheath should keep it.
+
+The elder brother went to the sword and tried to draw it. He pulled, he
+tugged, he strained, till the sweat ran down his face, but in vain. He
+could not draw it out one inch.
+
+Seeing the ill success of his elder brother, the younger thought it
+impossible for him to draw the magic sword, but at his brother's command
+he took the handle in his hand and pulled with all his might. To
+everybody's surprise out came the magic sword, and the Chinaman walked
+away in triumph.
+
+The elder brother now made up his mind that if he could not get the
+sword he would try for the bow, and he might have more success with
+that, so he exerted all his strength, and slowly, slowly bent it, till
+the cord was taut and the bow all ready to shoot.
+
+The people of the city were amazed that the two brothers should have
+such strength and good luck, and many envious eyes followed them as they
+again set out on their journey, carrying their trophies with them.
+
+They traveled on and on till they gave up counting the distance, it was
+so great, till one day, as they were resting on the banks of a large
+river in a far country, they saw a great fish swimming in the water. It
+was so great that nobody heretofore had been able to catch it, and it
+was in fact the king of all the fishes. It broke all the nets and
+smashed all the traps. It snapped all the lines that were set for it,
+and nobody was strong enough to pull it ashore when it did take the
+hook. The Chinamen saw it, and the elder brother instantly strung his
+bow, put on a bolt, and shot the great fish as it was swimming in the
+shallow water. In a few minutes he had it on his shoulder, and they
+commenced to cross the bridge to the other side of the river.
+
+Now the river was very wide, the current was very swift, and the bridge
+was not at all strong. It was only made of bamboos and rattan and swung
+from side to side as the men crossed it. When they got to the middle it
+began to creak and strain till the two travelers were in great fear it
+would break. The one who had killed it turned to his brother and said:
+
+"O brother, the fish is so heavy I am afraid the bridge will break.
+Please draw your magic sword and cut it in halves, and then we will be
+able to get to the other side in safety."
+
+The younger brother therefore drew his sword and cut the fish in halves;
+but he did not yet know how sharp the sword was, for he cut the fish in
+halves, it is true, but not only that, but the whole bridge as well, so
+that his brother fell into the water and was immediately swept from his
+sight. On his part he could not of course cross, now the bridge was
+down, so he returned to the same side of the river and ran along the
+bank looking to see whether his brother would be swept ashore in some
+shallow place; but although he ran till he was exhausted and then
+traveled for many days by the side of the river through the jungle, he
+could discover no trace of his lost brother.
+
+Swiftly down the stream his brother was carried. He tried to swim first
+to one bank and then to the other as the current swept him along, but in
+vain. At last he gave up trying. Nobody knows just how long he was in
+the water, but for many days he floated, and when he was on the point of
+dying from exhaustion, cold, and hunger, his feet touched bottom, and,
+more dead than alive, he crawled up the bank to dry land.
+
+He found that he had landed near a garden, and, on climbing over the
+wall, he discovered that it belonged to the king. He was too tired to
+climb back again, however, so sank on the ground and the next instant
+fell asleep from sheer weariness.
+
+Now it happened that the king of that country had just died, and his
+_amats_ had taken out the royal chariot and were drawing it around the
+city looking for the proper person to become king. As they went along
+they saw this young man sleeping in the royal garden with his magic bow
+beside him. He had come from nobody knew where. He was so strong that
+the river even could not kill him. Above all, he had a wonderful magic
+bow which none of the _amats_ or nobles could bend, so they came to the
+conclusion that he indeed was the man who should be king of the country,
+and he was crowned with great pomp and magnificence.
+
+The other brother had been left standing on the bridge when the elder
+fell into the water, as we have said, and for many days he followed the
+river bank till he too arrived in a far country. It was a very strange
+country. There were no men there, only monkeys, but they were the very
+cleverest monkeys that ever lived, and were ruled over by a _nang me
+prah_, that is, a queen, just as men are ruled. This queen of the
+monkeys fell in love with the Chinaman and married him, so that he
+became king of Monkey Land. They built a palace for him on the top of
+the highest tree in the jungle. Every seventh day they brought him food.
+Some brought plantains, some mangoes, some rice, and some fish fresh
+caught in the river.
+
+The elder brother had now been king of the country where he had landed
+for some years, and one day he remembered his younger brother, whom he
+had left standing on the broken bridge with the sword in his hand. He
+therefore called his _amats_ and told them he was going on a long
+journey, and that they must rule well and justly till he returned. He
+then called his favorite servants and set out to discover his brother.
+They had a great store of provisions carried by coolies. He had his
+royal elephants, on which he could ride when traveling over the steep
+mountain roads and to carry his chief queens, and ponies for riding over
+the plains.
+
+One night, however, he became separated from his followers and lost his
+way. He shouted and called, but shouted and called in vain. He could not
+find a trace of them. Servants, horses, elephants, and goods were all
+gone, and he was in great fear that he would die in the jungle. When
+morning broke he was much surprised to see that he had arrived at a
+city, but that the houses were all built on the tops of the trees, and
+on looking closer, he discovered that instead of people living in these
+houses the inhabitants were all large monkeys. Not a man was to be seen,
+and the monkeys were very fierce and screamed at him in anger from the
+top of every tree. One especially he noticed as being more fierce than
+any of the others, and he accordingly leveled his magic bow and shot it
+dead. As it fell from the tree to the ground he heard all the friends of
+the dead monkey come rushing out of their houses on the tops of the
+trees calling to one another that a man had killed one of their
+brethren, and asking that their friends would come to kill the man who
+had been guilty of the deed.
+
+[Illustration: "The man standing at the top of the tree was the long-lost
+brother." Page 37.]
+
+After a little time the king came to a tree that was taller than any
+other in the jungle, and upon it was a palace. Stairs led from the door
+of the palace to the ground, and as he looked more closely he saw a man
+up there. In great joy he called out to him, asking to be directed. "I
+am the king of a far country," he said, "and I am on a journey to search
+for my brother, whom I have not seen for many, many years. Last night I
+lost my way. Will you take pity on me and show me the way and I will
+give you a great reward?"
+
+"Who was your brother?" asked the man in the tree.
+
+"He was a Chinese student," returned the king, "and he had a wonderful
+magic sword. One day as we were traveling he cut a great fish in two,
+but such was the virtue residing in the magic sword that he not only cut
+the fish in halves but the bridge as well, so I left him standing on the
+end of the bridge."
+
+You may imagine how pleased the king was when he discovered that the man
+standing at the top of the tree was the long-lost brother for whom he
+was searching, and he made ready to ascend to his house in the treetop.
+
+At that moment a little monkey ran down the tree toward him, and he
+kicked it aside, saying, "Out of my way, little monkey."
+
+The small monkey in great anger said: "I am not a monkey, but your
+nephew."
+
+"My nephew!" exclaimed the king in great astonishment. "What do you mean
+by that?"
+
+His brother, the monkey king, then explained to him that he had married
+the queen of all the monkeys and that this was their child, that he
+ruled over all the monkeys, who had built this palace for him and every
+seventh day brought him tribute of food.
+
+"I am sorry to say, then," said the elder brother, "that I have killed
+one of your subjects," and at the same moment the wife and son of the
+dead monkey approached their king.
+
+"Our lord," said they, "the man yonder has been guilty of a great crime.
+He entered the domains of our lord and although we did nothing to him,
+yet he raised his bow and killed one of the servants of our lord.
+Therefore our lord's servants demand that he shall be killed too."
+
+"I am very sorry," said the king of the monkeys, "that you have killed
+that special monkey. He was very clever and brave. He was also one of my
+chief _amats_, and his friends will assuredly kill you."
+
+The monkeys were now assembling by hundreds and calling to each other
+everywhere. Every treetop appeared alive with angry figures all calling
+for vengeance on the man who had killed their friend.
+
+The king, however, who had taken sides with his brother, was not afraid,
+and said he could kill all the monkeys in the country; and he drew his
+sword and cut in halves the monkey nearest to him. To his great
+surprise, however, the two halves of the monkey he had killed each
+became a whole monkey and attacked him again, so that he now had two to
+fight instead of one. If he cut off the hand or leg of a monkey with
+his long sword, it immediately turned into two, and he soon saw that
+unless he devised some other way of fighting them they would soon kill
+them both.
+
+He therefore rushed off to the jungle and got a great hollow bamboo. He
+then went to a bees' nest and swept all the bees into it, and caught a
+great many scorpions and centipedes, snakes and spiders. When the
+monkeys came toward him to renew the fight, he opened one end of the
+bamboo and the insects and reptiles, swarming out, very angry at being
+kept prisoners in the hollow bamboo, soon drove the monkeys off so that
+the two brothers were able to escape. Shortly afterward they found the
+escort of the king and together returned to the city where the good
+elder brother made the younger his chief _amat_.
+
+Now when the younger brother became _amat_, he of course saw what a
+great king his brother was. He saw his subjects kneel before him; he saw
+the royal elephants, oxen, horses, and buffaloes; he saw the riches in
+money, jewels, and goods that belonged to him; that his queens were the
+most beautiful women in the land; and he became jealous. Then he coveted
+all these things. The next step was easy; he determined to kill his
+brother and become king in his stead. Then he began to ponder and plot
+how best he could destroy the brother who had been so good to him. He
+did not remember how that same brother had left all these things to come
+and hunt for him; how he had given him riches and honor and position,
+so that now he was chief minister and next to him in power. No, he did
+not think of any of these things, but like the ungrateful man that he
+was, thought only that his brother had more than he.
+
+He soon came to the conclusion that he could not kill his brother in the
+city, for everybody loved the king, and he feared that his crime would
+be discovered, so he was obliged to wait until they should be alone in
+the jungle together. The opportunity soon came. One day the king was out
+hunting and had gotten separated from all his followers. His brother the
+_amat_ was a short distance ahead when he saw, just in front of him, a
+very deep hole, so deep in fact that it was impossible to see the
+bottom. In great excitement he turned and beckoned to the king as fast
+as he could, calling out in a loud voice that he had something very
+wonderful to show him.
+
+The king thought that at least he had discovered a mountain of rubies
+and came running up. He knelt by the side of the hole but could see
+nothing.
+
+"There is nothing down there," said he.
+
+"Let our lord lean a little farther over," said the cunning _amat_. "He
+will then see the most wonderful thing in the world."
+
+The king bent farther over and his wicked brother gave him a push that
+sent him headlong to the bottom.
+
+He had now succeeded in all his plans; he had reached the height of his
+ambitions, but although he became king he was not happy. He had trouble
+all the time. It is true he had his brother's riches, that he rode the
+royal elephants, wore the royal robes, and lived in the royal palace,
+but he had trouble with his _amats_, with his soldiers, and his people,
+and therefore instead of being happy as he expected he would be, he was
+unhappy and miserable.
+
+If he had only known what was happening in the jungle he would have been
+more anxious still. His brother was not dead as he thought. The fall to
+the bottom of the hole did not kill him and he was only a prisoner. His
+followers had all gone back to the city with his wicked brother. He
+called, but called in vain. He heard nothing but the echo of his own
+cries, and he was about to give up in despair, when it happened that the
+mighty Lord Sa Kyah coming through the jungle heard his cries and
+inquired the cause. The king did not know that this was the Lord Sa
+Kyah, but told him all that had happened. Lord Sa Kyah was very angry
+with the king's heartless brother and created at the bottom of the hole
+a lily of the kind that has a very long stalk. The king sat upon the
+blossom of the lily which then began to grow very rapidly, and as it
+grew carried the king up toward the mouth of the hole.
+
+As he gradually rose toward daylight he saw that a tree was growing at
+the very edge of the pit, and that some of the branches hung over. He
+saw also that a monkey was busily engaged in feeding on the leaves and
+fruit. The lily, of course, made no noise as it pursued its upward path;
+the king also kept quiet so as not to frighten the monkey, and when he
+was near enough suddenly put forth his hand and caught it by the tail.
+The monkey screamed and kicked, fought and scratched, but in vain; the
+king held on, and at last the monkey climbed down the tree taking the
+king with him, and the latter was speedily standing once more on solid
+ground and able to offer up his thanks to the mighty Lord Sa Kyah.
+
+The king was not long in reaching the city and when he arrived, to his
+great sorrow he saw, as he expected, his ungrateful brother reigning,
+while the people all sorrowed for their old king. He determined to wait
+awhile before he declared himself, feeling that the Lord Sa Kyah who had
+already once helped him when in trouble and danger would aid him in
+regaining his lost kingdom; so he went into the poorest part of the
+city, put on the poorest and most ragged clothes that he could find, and
+sat near the gate of the city begging, from whence he often saw his
+brother riding by in state.
+
+One day the heralds came riding by and stood in the open space fronting
+the market where the gambling booths are, and gave notice that the king
+had commanded that if anybody could bend the magic bow belonging to the
+late king, his brother, he was to be made the chief _amat_ of the
+kingdom and receive many and great presents besides.
+
+As may be imagined, the next day there was a great crowd gathered
+together at the great gate of the palace, waiting for the king. At last
+out he came with all his ministers and followed by attendants bearing
+golden umbrellas. Behind him came a soldier carrying over his shoulder
+the magic bow which was placed at the king's feet. The king called upon
+his soldiers to come and bend the bow, and the strongest of them came
+forward, but although they pulled and tugged, tugged and strained, they
+could not bend it. Then the people of the city, or "the king's people,"
+as they loved to call themselves in contradistinction to the people who
+lived in the jungle villages, tried, but met with no better success than
+the soldiers. They could not bend the bow. The king then ordered the
+_amat loeng_ to call the men from the jungle. The very strongest coolies,
+those who carried heavy burdens over the mountains, came in answer to
+the king's summons, but although some of them could carry fifty _soie_
+over the highest mountain they could not draw the cord a hand's-breadth.
+
+The king, much disappointed, was about to return to the palace when a
+beggar man approached and bowing at his feet said he was able to draw
+the bow and fire an arrow from it. The king was angry at what he thought
+was the presumption of this beggar. The soldiers derided him, saying
+that the bravest of them could not draw the bow and how was a beggar to
+do it? The coolies also asked him whether he could carry fifty _soie_
+over Loi Mawk Pah that was called the Cloud Mountain, because its head
+was often in the clouds. But the beggar asked to be allowed to try and
+the king gave orders that he should be given the bow, at the same saying
+that he assuredly should be made _amat loeng_ if he was successful, but
+if he could not bend the bow, he should be put to death immediately.
+
+The beggar assented to these terms and seized the bow. He took hold of
+the string and without any show of strength pulled it a hand's-breadth,
+and then as the king and his courtiers looked on in amazement he pulled
+it to its full length, placed the string on the ivory trigger, put an
+arrow on it, and asked the king where he should shoot.
+
+"Straight up into the air," said the king. The beggar raised the bow,
+twang went the string, and the arrow whizzed out of sight. Everybody
+stood looking up into the sky when suddenly one of the courtiers gave a
+warning cry. It came too late. The arrow had gone straight up, turned,
+and fell almost on the same spot from whence it was shot. Almost, but
+not quite, for in its fall it struck the upturned face of the king and
+he fell dead.
+
+A great cry was raised as the king fell and the guards rushed forward to
+seize the beggar and lead him to immediate execution, but he waved them
+off with a gesture of his hand. The next instant his rags fell from him
+and he stood before them in the royal robes of a king.
+
+Thus we see that the younger brother, although indeed he had not
+murdered his brother the king, yet did kill him in his thoughts and
+intentions, and he suffered the punishment that is always meted out to
+the man who kills his fellow.
+
+
+
+
+STORY OF THE PRINCESS NANG KAM UNG
+
+
+There was once a king who reigned over one of the largest States in the
+hill and water country. For a long time there had been war between him
+and the _sau hpa_ of the neighboring State, but at last his soldiers had
+been successful, and his enemy had been driven out of his possessions,
+which had thereupon been added to his own. A great feast had been given
+when his soldiers returned to their homes, and he was now sitting with
+his queens and his seven daughters in the palace watching a performance
+given in honor of the victory. He praised the actors for their skill,
+and then asked his daughters whether they had enjoyed the performance.
+They one and all assured him that they had enjoyed it much, and then
+turning to them he continued:
+
+"That is right, my daughters, enjoy yourselves to-day and to-morrow and
+all through your lives. You are the daughters of a mighty king, and it
+is your lot to be happy and enjoy yourselves all your lives, therefore
+again I say enjoy yourselves and be happy."
+
+The eldest of the daughters, who was a perfect courtier said: "O our
+lord, our luck is fortunate, because it depends on that of the lord our
+father, and who is so fortunate as he?"
+
+The king was very pleased with the flattery of his daughter, and
+promised to grant any request she would make of him.
+
+The youngest daughter, however, was young and foolish, and had not yet
+learned the truth that in a king's presence it is not well always to say
+what one thinks, and therefore she said to her sister: "Your luck may
+depend on the luck of the lord our father, but mine is my own and
+depends upon myself alone."
+
+When the king heard this he was very angry that one of his daughters,
+and she the youngest too, should have the presumption to say that she
+depended for anything at all on any other than he, and he determined to
+punish her.
+
+For a long time he pondered on the best way to do this and at last
+devised a plan which, if severe, was at least novel.
+
+He called his _amats_ to go throughout the whole land and search for the
+poorest man in all his kingdom, and when they had found him they were to
+bring him to the palace and he would marry his youngest daughter to him,
+and then, said he, "We will see about luck after that."
+
+Day after day the heralds searched the land but they could not find a
+man poor enough to suit the king. All who were brought before him
+acknowledged that they had something valuable, either a little money, a
+precious stone, or a distant relative who was rich and from whom they
+could borrow a little if necessary. A man of this description would not
+suit the angry king. He wanted one poorer than that.
+
+At last the _amat loeng_, or chief minister, brought a man before him and
+said that he was the poorest in all the land. His name was Ai Du Ka Ta.
+He was a woodseller in the bazaar, who every day went into the jungle
+and picked up the dead branches of the trees that had fallen to the
+ground, and brought them to the market every fifth day to sell. So poor
+was he that he did not even own the sword that is the almost inseparable
+companion of the Shan and is used, among other things, to cut down the
+small trees that are left to dry for firewood, so he had to be content
+to pick up the small branches that he found under the trees, and got a
+proportionately small price when he carried his load into the bazaar.
+
+When he appeared before the king, his trousers were all fringed at the
+bottom where they had been torn by the thorns in the jungle. His turban
+months before had been white, but now it was a deep gray; it was only
+half its original length and was full of holes. Jacket he had none, and
+when the king asked him how many blankets he had upon his bed at home to
+keep him warm at night when the cold wind brought the rain up the
+valley, he answered sorrowfully, "Not one, our lord." He had no relative
+except an old mother whom he was obliged to support, and who was known
+throughout the district in which she lived as the woman with the
+bitterest tongue in all the land, and when too sick to move from her
+mat, she would yet fill the air with poisoned words.
+
+The king was very pleased with his _amat loeng_ for finding Ai Du Ka Ta,
+and gave him a very fine horse as a reward. Then he called his daughter,
+took away all her fine clothes and married her to this poorest man in
+his realm and drove her out of the palace amid the jeers and taunts of
+the very people who, before her disgrace, had waited upon her every word
+and had done her bidding while they trembled before her. The king also
+took away her old name and commanded that in future she was to be known
+as Nang Kam Ung, which means, "The woman whose luck depends upon
+herself."
+
+The house, or rather hut, to which Ai Du Ka Ta took his bride was in the
+jungle. It was only four bamboo poles stuck in the ground and covered
+with dried grass and bushes. Not even a sleeping mat was on the
+ground--there was no floor--and the chattie in which he cooked his rice
+had a hole in it, and had to be set upon three stones sideways over the
+fire with the hole uppermost, to prevent the water leaking and putting
+out the fire.
+
+Fortunately the girl's mother had helped her to smuggle out her
+"birth-stone," which was a large, valuable ruby, and so she took it off
+her finger and gave it to her husband, telling him to go and sell it and
+buy clothes and food for both of them.
+
+Ai looked at the stone and said, "Who will give me food and clothes for
+a little red stone like that? We have no fools or mad men living near
+here who would do such a foolish thing as that," for you must remember
+he had lived in the jungle all his life, and had never heard of precious
+stones, much less seen one till now.
+
+His friends were just as ignorant of its value as he was. He went from
+house to house in the little village near, but all laughed at him till
+he became disgusted, threw the stone away in the jungle and came home in
+a very ill humor with his wife for leading him such a wild-goose chase,
+and making him appear foolish in the eyes of the few people he knew.
+
+His wife was in great distress when she found that he had thrown the
+ruby away, and told her husband that if he had gone to the city and
+taken it to the jewelers, instead of to the ignorant people in the
+jungle, they would have given him in return enough money to keep them in
+food and clothing all the hot season and build a new house into the
+bargain.
+
+Ai looked at her and said: "Indeed, that is a thing good to marvel at.
+Why, I know where there are coolie-basket loads of such red stones in
+the dry bed of a river near where I gather sticks for fire-wood in the
+jungle, waiting for anybody to carry away, and I never thought them
+worth the labor of taking to the bazaar."
+
+The princess was full of joy when she heard this, and the next morning
+they borrowed two coolie baskets from a man in the village. Bright and
+early they went to the river bed, and there, even as Ai had said, were
+basket loads of fine rubies. They gathered them up carefully and buried
+most of them, covering over the hole with a flat stone, so that no one
+would discover their hoard, and then the princess, picking out a double
+handful of the largest and clearest ones, sent them to her father.
+
+The king, when he saw the jewels, instead of being pleased, fell into a
+great passion, called the unfortunate _amat loeng_ into his presence, and
+after rating him soundly, deprived him of all his goods, houses, and
+lands, deposed him from office, and drove him from his presence as poor
+as Ai himself had been.
+
+"I ordered you to call a poor man," roared the king to the trembling man
+before him. "I said he was to have no goods or property at all, and here
+the very next day he sends me a double handful of the very best rubies I
+ever saw in my life."
+
+In vain the culprit assured the king that the day before Ai was
+certainly the poorest man in the whole kingdom, and complained that the
+jewels must have been the work of some _hpea_, whom he had unwittingly
+offended, and who had therefore determined on his ruin in revenge. The
+king would listen to no excuse, and the unhappy _amat_ was glad to crawl
+from his presence before resentment had carried him to the length of
+ordering his execution.
+
+The very next night a wonderful golden deer entered the royal garden
+where the king was accustomed to sit when it became too warm in the
+palace, and after doing an immense amount of mischief, eating favorite
+flowers, and otherwise destroying and ruining the garden, it leaped over
+the fence and disappeared in the early morning fog, just as the guards
+were arousing themselves from sleep. It was in truth not a golden deer
+as the guards had told the king, but a _hpea_ that had assumed this
+form; but the king not knowing this ordered his heralds to go through
+the city immediately and call upon all the inhabitants to come early
+next morning to help their lord catch it. Ai was summoned with the rest
+of the people. He had no horse, but going to the city gate that day he
+saw that a race between horses belonging to the king was about to be
+run. Ai was a good horseman, and asked the head horse-feeder of the king
+to let him ride one of the animals. He rode, and rode so well that he
+won the race, and that official was so pleased with him that he promised
+to grant him any request in his power. Ai asked for the privilege of
+riding the same horse at the hunt next day, and the request was readily
+granted, and thus it happened that, next morning when he went to the
+place appointed, he rode a horse that was faster than any other there
+except the one the king himself rode.
+
+The people were divided into four parties; one toward the north, one
+toward the south, one east, and one west. The king stationed himself
+with the party at south, and the _amats_ were at the north, and when the
+deer was at last driven out of the jungle by the beaters it headed
+toward the king and dashed by him at great speed.
+
+The _hpea_ that had taken the form of the deer wished to have some fun
+at the king's expense, and therefore kept ahead just where the king
+could see him all the while, sometimes but a cubit or two away from him,
+and then when the country was open, darting far in advance. So swiftly
+did they go that in a few minutes the men on foot were left behind, and
+after a while all except those upon the very fastest horses were
+distanced, till at last only the king and Ai were left, the latter but a
+little behind the king. All day long the chase continued till, just as
+the sun was setting and men and horses were both exhausted, the deer
+made straight for a precipice that appeared to block the path on each
+hand as far as the eye could reach. The king was congratulating himself
+that the deer could not possibly escape now, when he saw right before
+him an opening in the rock, and the next instant the _hpea_ disappeared
+in the cave and the king was obliged to give up the chase, for even if
+his horse could have carried him any farther, which it could not, the
+cave was so dark that nothing could be seen inside.
+
+The king fell from his horse almost dead with fatigue, and managed to
+crawl under a wide-spreading banyan tree that grew near. The only other
+person there was Ai, and he, coming to the king, massaged his limbs till
+the tired monarch fell asleep. After a while he awoke and Ai asked him
+to eat some rice he had prepared, but the king said he was too tired to
+eat anything; but at last he managed to eat a little sweet, glutinous
+rice that the princess had cooked in a hollow piece of bamboo and given
+to her husband before he set out that morning.
+
+The king was very grateful and asked Ai his name; but the latter was
+afraid to tell what his real name was, so, as his mother years before
+had been in the habit of selling betel-nut in the bazaar, he told the
+king that his name was Sau Boo, or betel-nut seller.
+
+The king was very pleased with him and promised him great rewards when
+they got back to the palace; but in a few minutes he had dropped asleep
+again, and Ai sat alone keeping guard.
+
+It was very fortunate that he too did not go to sleep, for as every one
+knows, the banyan is a sacred tree, and this one was inhabited by a
+_hpea_ who was noted for being one of the cruelest and most dreaded
+spirits in all the land. Ai roused the king and told him there was a
+_hpea_ in the tree and begged him not to sleep there for it would
+assuredly kill them both before morning.
+
+The king said, "Wake me not, trouble me not. From my head to my feet, I
+am nothing but aches and pains. Were I to move I should die. I may as
+well die at the hands of the _hpea_." So saying he fell asleep again,
+and Ai did not dare to disturb him, but watched all night long.
+
+During the night Ai heard the _hpea_ grumbling to himself several times
+and promising himself the pleasure of killing them on the morrow, so he
+pretended to be asleep so that he could hear what the _hpea_ said and if
+possible thwart him.
+
+"These mortals have presumed to sleep under my tree," he heard him say,
+"but it shall be the last time they sleep anywhere. Let me see," he
+continued, "how shall I kill them? Which will be the best way? Ah, I
+know. Early to-morrow when they get ready to leave, I will break the
+tree in two, and the top shall fall on them. If, however, they escape, I
+will saw through the supports of the first bridge, so that it will
+break when they are in the middle, and they will fall to the bottom of
+the valley below. Then if that should fail, I will loosen the stones of
+the arch of the city gate so that it will fall on them as they pass
+underneath, and if that does not kill them, when the king arrives at his
+palace and being thirsty with his long ride calls for water, I will
+change the water in the goblet to sharp needles that will stick in his
+throat and kill him. If he does not drink the water, however, he will
+assuredly be very tired and will go to sleep immediately, and I will
+send an immense rat into his room that will kill him without doubt."
+
+Having finished making his plans, the _hpea_ left the tree and started
+the work of preparing the different traps for the mortals who had
+enraged his hpeaship by daring to sleep under the tree, and thus profane
+his home.
+
+The king was frightened half to death when he awoke next morning, and
+found that he had been sleeping all night under the tree of that special
+_hpea_; but Ai, or Sau Boo as the king called him, told him not to be
+frightened for he could save his life if the king would only follow his
+advice and do as he told him.
+
+The king promised to follow his words implicitly, and also promised him
+unheard-of rewards if he only helped him to get to his palace in safety.
+
+The first danger was the tree, and so Ai got their horses ready and
+under the pretense of allowing them to eat grass before setting out on
+their journey, he gradually worked them nearer and still nearer the
+edge of the tree, and then, with one bound, they both galloped out from
+under it. At the same instant there was a great crash and the whole top
+of the tree fell to the ground. So near did it fall on them that the
+king's turban was torn from his head by one of the upper branches, but
+beyond this no harm was done.
+
+Next, instead of riding over the bridge, they went along the bank a
+little distance, and soon found a place where the _huek_ was narrow and
+leaped their horses to the other side. While they were jumping, Ai threw
+a heavy stone he had brought with him on to the bridge, and the _hpea_,
+who fortunately was near-sighted, thinking it was the tread of the
+horses, broke it down, so that fell into the water fifty feet below, but
+the king and his follower were safe on the other side.
+
+The next danger was the city gate. They walked their ponies slowly as
+though they were very tired, till they came to within a cubit of the
+gate, and then galloped through at the top of their speed, and crash
+went the gateway behind them. They were covered with dust but not hurt.
+
+The king was very thankful to have arrived at his palace and being very
+thirsty with the journey and excitement, as the cunning _hpea_ had
+expected, called for a drink of water, but ere he could place the cup to
+his lips his faithful follower turned it upside down, and instead of
+water, out fell a cupful of sharp needles, and again the king's life was
+saved.
+
+Worn out with his ride he told his servants to prepare his room as he
+would sleep. Ai called the chief guard and told him to have a lamp
+burning all night, to take his sharpest sword with him, and guard the
+king carefully. In the middle of the night when the tired king was
+sleeping soundly, into the room came creeping slowly, slowly, the
+biggest rat ever seen. It had long, sharp teeth and wicked glaring eyes,
+and made toward the king. But the guard, warned by Ai, was on the watch,
+and just as the rat was about to spring at the king's throat, the
+soldier with a sweep of his long, sharp sword cut off its head, and thus
+the king through the cleverness of one man escaped the last danger and
+could now live without fear.
+
+The next morning the king called his heralds and bade them go into the
+city and summon Sau Boo to come to the palace to be rewarded. They
+searched and called, but searched and called in vain. No man ever heard
+of a man by that name, and the king was fast getting angry when the
+_amats_ told him that they personally had gone to every house except
+one, and that was the house of Ai. The king in surprise ordered them to
+call his son-in-law. "He may be able to tell us something about him," he
+observed. Ai accordingly obeyed his summons, but the king was more
+surprised yet when Ai told him that Sau Boo and himself were one and the
+same, and that it was he who had rescued the king from so many dangers.
+
+At first his father-in-law became angry and refused to believe him, but
+Ai gave an account of everything that had happened from the time when
+the deer broke cover, till the rat was killed by the guard, and thus
+convinced the king of his truthfulness.
+
+The king then made a great feast, called all his ministers and generals
+together, and made a proclamation that Ai in future should be his _amat
+loeng_ and should be king when he himself died.
+
+Thus did the princess prove that her luck really depended upon herself,
+and not on the king, and to-day we say, "May your luck be as good as the
+luck of Nang Kam Ung."
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE HARE DECEIVED THE TIGER.
+
+
+At the beginning of the world a hare, tiger, ox, buffalo, and horse
+became friends and lived together. One day the tiger was out hunting
+when, it being in the middle of the hot season, the jungle caught fire,
+and a strong wind blowing, it was not long before the whole country was
+in flames. The tiger fled, but the fire followed. Never mind how fast he
+ran, the flames followed him, till he was in great fear of being burned
+alive. As he was rushing along he saw the ox feeding on the other side
+of the river and called out to him:
+
+"O friend ox, you see the fire is following me wherever I go. Where is a
+place of refuge that I can escape the fire?"
+
+Now close to the tiger was a jungle full of dried grass, such as the
+Shans use for thatching their houses, and the ox replied, "Go to the
+grass jungle yonder, my brother, and you will be safe."
+
+But dried grass is the most inflammable thing in the whole hill and
+water country, and so here, not only did the flames follow the tiger,
+but they ran ahead of him and threatened to engulf him on every side. In
+great anger he roared at the ox, "False deceiver, if ever I escape from
+this danger, I will return and kill you," but the ox only laughed at him
+and continued eating.
+
+In desperation, the tiger leaped over the flames and found himself near
+the horse. "O friend horse," he cried, "where can I go? I am in great
+danger of being burned to death."
+
+Now it happened that once the tiger had been very rude to the horse and
+called him many bad names, so now he thought this was a good opportunity
+to be revenged; so he said: "Yonder is a big bamboo jungle, run to that
+and you are safe"; but the tiger found that the horse was also a false
+friend, for the fire following him speedily ignited the tall bamboos
+which burned fiercely and falling from above, almost completely covered
+the poor beast.
+
+At the beginning of the world the tiger was a beautiful yellow color,
+but the bamboos falling all over him, burnt him in stripes, and since
+that time his descendants have had long black stripes all over their
+coats.
+
+"When I have escaped from this," yelled the angry tiger, "I will come
+back and kill you."
+
+"Very good," sneered the horse, "and I will arch my neck so that you can
+get a good bite," but this was said to deceive the tiger, as the horse
+intended to lash out with his hind feet when the tiger came to fight
+him. Nevertheless, from that day the necks of all horses have been
+arched, and they cannot fight an enemy in front, but are obliged to arch
+their necks, lower their heads, and kick from behind.
+
+The tiger, by this time tired to death and suffering from the burns of
+the bamboos, saw the buffalo and accosted him as he had his other
+friends.
+
+"O good friend buffalo," he cried, "I am in great danger of being burned
+alive. The horse and the ox have not only deceived me, but in following
+their advice I have arrived at a worse condition than before. What can I
+do to be freed from this great danger?"
+
+The buffalo looked up from the cool river where he was enjoying a bath,
+and taking compassion on him said: "If you will catch hold of my throat
+I will duck you in the river and so you shall escape from the danger
+that is following you."
+
+So the tiger seized the good buffalo by the throat and was held under
+water till the fire had burnt itself out. The tiger was very grateful to
+the buffalo and made an agreement with him that from that time no tiger
+should ever kill a buffalo, and it is only the very worst tigers, those
+that kill men, that ever kill a buffalo, and the tigers that are guilty
+of killing buffaloes are sure to be killed themselves, sooner or later.
+
+The tiger held so fast to the buffalo that when the latter came out of
+the water, his throat and neck were all white, and buffaloes all have
+that mark on their necks and throats till this very day.
+
+The tiger was so cold after his bath that he shook and shivered as
+though he had fever, and seeing a little house made of dried grass a
+short distance off he went to it and found that a hare was living there.
+
+"Good friend," said the tiger, "I am so cold I am afraid I shall die.
+Will you take compassion on me and allow me to rest in your house and
+get warm before I return home?"
+
+"Come in, our lord," said the hare. "If our lord deigns to honor my poor
+house with his presence, he will confer a favor that his slave will
+never forget."
+
+The tiger was only too glad to go into the hare's house, and the latter
+immediately made room for him by sitting on the roof. Soon the tiger
+heard click! click! click! and he called out: "O friend hare, what are
+you doing up there on the roof of your house?"
+
+Now the hare was really at that moment striking fire with her flint and
+steel, but she deceived the tiger and said, "It is very cold up here,
+and our lord's slave was shivering," but the next moment the spark
+struck the dried grass on the roof and the house was soon in flames.
+
+The tiger dashed out just in time and turned in a rage on his late host,
+but the hare was far away, having jumped at the same moment that the
+spark set fire to the roof of the house.
+
+The tiger gave chase, but after a while he saw the hare sitting down and
+watching something intently, so he asked, "What are you looking at?"
+
+"This is a fine seat belonging to the Ruler of the Hares," returned she.
+
+"I would like to sit on it," said the tiger.
+
+"Well," said the hare, "wait till I can go and ask our lord to give you
+permission."
+
+"All right, I will watch till you come back and will not kill you as I
+intended doing, if you get me permission to sit on it," said the tiger.
+
+Now this was not a chair at all, but some hard sharp stones that the
+hare had covered with mud and shaped with her paws to deceive the tiger.
+The hare ran off a long distance and pretended to talk with some one and
+then called out: "The lord of the chair says, our lord the tiger may
+sit, if he throws himself down upon it with all his might. This is our
+custom."
+
+The tiger flung himself upon what he thought was the chair with all his
+might, but the soft mud gave way and he fell upon the stones underneath
+and hurt his paws badly. He therefore sprang up and vowed vengeance on
+the hare that he could just see far off in the distance.
+
+By and by as the hare was running along she saw a large wasps' nest
+hanging from the branch of a tree, so she sat down and watched it
+intently. When the tiger came up he was so curious to know what the hare
+was looking at so intently that he did not kill her, but instead asked
+her what she was looking at.
+
+The hare showed the tiger the wasps' nest on the tree and said: "That is
+the finest gong in all the hill and water country."
+
+"I would like to beat it," said the tiger.
+
+"Just wait a minute," returned the hare, "and I will go to the lord of
+the gong and ask permission for you to beat it."
+
+The hare ran till she was far away in the jungle, and then at the top of
+her voice called out: "If you wish to beat the gong, the lord of the
+gong says you must strike it as hard as you can with your head. That is
+his custom."
+
+[Illustration: "Again the cunning hare deceived the tiger." Page 63.]
+
+The tiger butted at the nest with all his might and made a big jagged
+rent in its side, and out flew the angry wasps in swarms, completely
+covering the poor tiger, who with a dreadful yell of pain tore away from
+his tormentors. His face was all swollen, and from that day till the
+present, the faces of tigers have all been wide and flat.
+
+Again he chased the hare, and when the smart from the stings of the
+wasps had subsided a little, he found to his great joy that he was
+gaining on his enemy fast. The hare on her part saw that the tiger would
+soon catch her and looked around for some means of escape, and spied
+just before her a snake half in and half out of its hole.
+
+The hare stopped as before and sat gazing at the snake so intently that
+the tiger instead of killing her as he had intended to do, asked her
+what it was in the hole.
+
+"This," returned the hare, "is a wonderful flute that only kings and
+nobles are allowed to play. Would our lord like to play?"
+
+"Indeed I would," said the tiger; "but where is the lord of this
+wonderful flute? Whom shall I ask for permission?"
+
+"If our lord watches right here," said the cunning hare, "his slave will
+go to the lord of the flute and ask permission," and the tiger, well
+content, sat down to wait.
+
+Again the cunning hare deceived the tiger by pretending to ask
+permission, and when a long distance off he called as before: "Our lord
+has permission to play the flute. Let him put it in his mouth and blow
+with all his might. This is the custom of the lord of the flute."
+
+The foolish tiger immediately took the snake's head into his mouth, but
+the sound that followed came from the tiger, not from the flute, and a
+terrible yell he gave as the snake bit his mouth! But the hare was far
+away and would soon have been safe but for an unlooked for accident that
+nearly ended her life.
+
+The people who lived in that part of the hill and water country were at
+war with the State that joined them on the north, and thinking that the
+soldiers of the enemy would soon invade their country they had made a
+trap in the middle of the path over which the hare was running. First
+they dug a hole so deep that should anybody fall in, it would be
+impossible to climb out again. The sides of the pit were dug on the
+slant so that the opening was smaller than the bottom. Over the top they
+had placed thin strips of bamboo that would break if any extra weight
+came upon them and they had covered the whole with grass and leaves so
+that no traveler would know that a trap was there. Into this hole fell
+the poor little hare.
+
+Presently the tiger came up to see where the hare had gone, and when he
+saw the hole in the middle of the path, he called out, "Where are you,
+friend hare?" and the hare from the bottom of the trap called out, "I
+have fallen into a trap."
+
+Then the tiger sat on the ground and just bent double with laughter to
+think that at last he had the hare in his power, but the little animal
+down in the hole although she did not say anything, thought harder in a
+few minutes than the tiger had in all his life. By and by as she looked
+up through the hole she had made in the roof, she saw that the sky
+overhead was getting darker and darker as a storm was coming on, so in
+great glee, although she pretended to be very much frightened, she
+called out as loudly as ever she could:
+
+"Our lord tiger! our lord tiger!"
+
+At first the tiger did not answer, so the hare then called, "Does not
+our lord see the great danger approaching? Let our lord look at the
+sky."
+
+The tiger looked up and saw the dark clouds coming slowly, slowly on,
+covering the whole sky; his laughter stopped and he soon began to get
+very frightened.
+
+After a while, when it had become still darker, he called to the hare:
+"O friend, what is the matter with the sky? What is going to happen?"
+
+Then the hare replied: "Our lord, the sky has fallen where you see it is
+dark; that is far away, but in a few minutes it will fall here and
+everybody will be crushed to death."
+
+The foolish tiger was now frightened half to death and called to the
+hare: "O friend, I have treated you badly in trying to kill you. Do not
+be angry and take revenge on me, but take compassion on my terrible
+condition, and graciously tell me how to escape this danger, and I swear
+that I will never try to harm you more."
+
+It was the hare's turn to laugh now, but she only laughed quietly to
+herself, for she was afraid the tiger would hear her, then she said,
+"Down here our lord's slave is quite safe. If our lord descends, he too
+will be safe," and before the hare had hardly finished, the cowardly
+tiger made a jump for the hole the hare had made and joined her at the
+bottom of the trap.
+
+But the hare was not out yet and she began to plan how she could get out
+herself and yet keep the tiger in. At last a happy thought struck her.
+She sidled up to the tiger and began to tickle him in the ribs. The
+tiger squirmed and twisted first one way and then the other, first to
+one side and then to the other; at last he could stand it no longer and
+catching the hare he threw her out of the trap and she landed on solid
+ground.
+
+As soon as the hare found she was safe, she began to call at the top of
+her voice: "O men, come! come! I, the hare have deceived the tiger and
+he is at the bottom of the trap. O men, come! I, the hare call you.
+Bring your spears and guns; bring your swords, and kill the tiger that I
+have tricked into entering the trap."
+
+At first the men did not believe the hare, for they did not think that
+an animal so small as the hare could deceive the tiger, but then they
+also knew that the hare was very clever and had much wisdom, so they
+brought their spears and their guns, their swords and their sticks, and
+killed the tiger in the trap.
+
+Thus did the hare prove that though small she was full of wisdom, and
+although the tiger was bigger, stronger, and fiercer than she, yet she,
+through her wisdom, was able to kill him.
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF THE TORTOISE.
+
+
+There was once a man who had two wives. Now as everybody knows it is
+always the chief wife that the husband loves best, while the other
+instead of being _Mae Long_, is only _Mae Noi_, and this often causes
+jealousy and trouble in the family. It was so in this case, especially
+as the chief wife did not have a son to add to her dignity. They each
+had a daughter, the name of the chief wife's child was Nang Hsen Gaw,
+and that of the other Nang E.
+
+One day the husband of these women went to the lake to fish. He caught a
+large number of shell fish and put them on the shore for his wives to
+bring home. The younger took her share of the load, but, being very
+hungry, she ate them all. The mother of Nang Hsen Gaw, however, was not
+greedy like the other woman, and so she put all the fish that were left
+into her bag and began to trudge slowly toward the house.
+
+Now, the mother of Nang E was a witch, although no one, of course, knew
+it. Being wicked enough to be a witch, she did not hesitate at
+committing any other crime, even the most dreadful, and she therefore
+made up her mind that she would kill the mother of Nang Hsen Gaw so that
+she could be the chief wife. She got home much sooner than the other
+woman, as she had no load to carry, and when she saw her husband he
+naturally asked her where the fish were. "Now," she thought, "here's a
+good chance to get that woman out of the way," so she told her husband
+that his other wife was a _poer_, or witch, and she had taken all the
+fish away from her. Now, witches are of course very much dreaded, so
+when the poor woman came home with her heavy load of fish, the villagers
+killed her with their sticks, and she was changed into a tortoise in the
+lake.
+
+And now at last the mother of Nang E was chief wife, but do you think
+she was satisfied? Not a bit of it. She heard that her rival was now a
+tortoise in the lake, and she determined to kill her again.
+
+Some time after this, as Nang Hsen Gaw was in the jungle watching the
+cows that belonged to her father, she walked along the edge of the lake
+and was very much surprised to hear her own name called in familiar
+tones. She looked around, but could see no one, and she was getting very
+frightened, thinking that it was perhaps a _hpea_ who wanted to entice
+her into the thick jungle so that he could devour her, but at last she
+looked on the ground at her feet and saw it was a tortoise that was
+speaking to her.
+
+"Nang Hsen Gaw," it called. "My daughter, _oie!_ I am your mother who
+was killed through the wicked acts of my rival, the mother of Nang E. I
+have arrived at great trouble, and now, instead of being the chief wife
+of a rich man, I am nothing but a tortoise swimming in the lake. Take
+pity on me, my daughter, and out of compassion every day bring me cotton
+thread and raw cotton, so that I can weave and spin."
+
+[Illustration: "'I am nothing but a tortoise swimming in the lake.'"
+Page 68.]
+
+Nang Hsen Gaw was a dutiful daughter, and every day when she went to the
+jungle she took cotton for her mother to spin, and thread for her to
+weave, and daily talked with her, telling her all the gossip of the
+village and anything else that she thought her mother would like to
+hear.
+
+But the mother of Nang E was on the watch, and thinking it strange that
+the girl should take cotton and thread to the jungle every day, and
+bring none back with her when she drove the cattle back at night, she
+followed her, heard her talking with her mother, and thus found out in
+what part of the lake her enemy was, and laid her plan accordingly.
+
+That evening, unknown to her family, while her husband was busy working
+in his garden, she went to the house where lived the doctor of the
+village, unfolded her plans to him and asked for his help. Being an
+unscrupulous man he agreed, took the silver the woman had pilfered from
+her husband, and promised to help her. The next day she was taken very
+sick and her husband called in the doctor, who told him that the woman
+must have a tortoise from the lake near-by. If she boiled and ate it
+according to his directions she would get well, if not, she would die.
+Having performed his part of the bargain he returned to his home at the
+other end of the village.
+
+Next morning the man went to the lake to get the tortoise. Nang Hsen Gaw
+was much distressed when she saw her father set out, and her distress
+became worse when she saw that the wicked stepmother had directed him
+to the little pond where her own mother was. The man took a large bucket
+made out of wicker work, and commenced baling out the water, but Nang
+Hsen Gaw was able to warn her mother just where her father was, so that
+when he was on one side of the pond her mother went to the other, but at
+last he sent the girl home, and in a few minutes secured the tortoise
+and was soon carrying it away for his wife to eat.
+
+When he got home he gave her the tortoise, little thinking who it was,
+and then went out, while the witch called Nang Hsen Gaw to watch the pot
+which had been put over the fire.
+
+Soon the poor girl heard her mother call out. She said that the hot
+water had reached her knees, and begged her to put out the fire. She
+commenced to rake out the hot embers from under the pot, when her
+stepmother saw what she was doing, and taking up a heavy bamboo beat her
+unmercifully and made her put more sticks on the fire. Soon her mother
+complained again that the heat had reached her shoulders, and again Nang
+E's mother beat her, and made her put more sticks on the fire. Soon she
+heard her mother say: "My daughter, _oie_! The hot water has reached my
+neck and I shall soon be dead. When it is all over, do not let that
+wicked woman destroy me altogether, but bury me in the jungle," and in a
+few minutes she was dead.
+
+Nang Hsen Gaw tried her best to get the dead body of her mother, but her
+stepmother watched her carefully, and all she could not eat herself she
+gave to the dogs, to prevent her daughter from getting any, but one dog
+ran off with his portion into the jungle. Nang Hsen Gaw followed in time
+to rescue the webbing between the fingers.[3] This was all that was
+left, but she buried that carefully in the jungle far from the house
+where her stepmother lived.
+
+The next day as she was walking through the jungle feeding her cows, she
+heard sweet music. It sounded like twelve organs all playing at the same
+time, and yet in harmony, each organ blending with the others. In great
+surprise she hunted around till she came to the spot where she had
+buried the part of her mother's hand, and saw that during the night this
+had changed into a beautiful _mai nyung kham_ tree.[4] And so this good
+and dutiful daughter went every day to listen to the tree as she had
+gone daily to the lake when her mother had been a tortoise, and the tree
+sang sweeter when she was near than at any other time.
+
+But such a wonderful thing as this could not be kept a secret. Others
+heard of it and people came from far and near to hear the sweet music
+come from the tree. One of the _amats_ of the great king who "ate"[5]
+the country, heard that a miracle was to be seen in this jungle, and
+accordingly reported it to his lord, who sent men to cut the tree down
+and bring it to his palace. All day long the men worked at the tree,
+from the time the country became light till the moon rose at night, but
+although they had the sharpest of axes and were the most skillful
+workmen in all the country, yet with all their labor they could only cut
+through the bark, and during the night the tree grew so quickly that
+when the morning dawned, it was twice as large as it was the night
+before, and the marks made by the axes on the bark were covered with new
+bark harder than ever.
+
+The king was very angry when he heard of the ill success of his woodmen,
+had them all executed, and sent others, but they had no better success
+than the first. But this only made the king more stubborn and determined
+to get the tree at any cost, and he therefore sent the heralds all
+through the country and made a proclamation that any man who could bring
+the tree to his palace should be made his _Kem Moeng,_ that is, heir
+apparent; should it be a woman, she should become _Nang Me Prah_, or
+chief queen. Many men therefore came with sharp _pahs_ and axes but all
+were equally unsuccessful, and the king despaired of ever getting the
+tree, when Nang Hsen Gaw heard of the reward offered by the king, and
+told the heralds she could bring the tree to his palace. The king was
+full of joy when he heard this, and made great preparations for her. On
+her part she simply went to the jungle and, taking off her turban,
+fastened it around the tree and carried it bodily into the palace where
+it sang as sweetly every day as when it was in the jungle.
+
+When the mother of Nang E heard of the good fortune that had befallen
+Nang Hsen Gaw she was very angry, and calling her own daughter to
+follow her, she set off for the capital. When she had arrived there she
+disguised herself and became a servant to the queen, and pondered how
+she could kill the _Nang Me Prah_ and put her own daughter Nang E in her
+place.
+
+One day this wicked woman told the queen that she had found some fine
+soap beans and bark, that she was very skillful in shampooing, and as
+the next day was to be a great feast when the queen would follow the
+king on her royal elephant, the soap beans would make her black hair
+blacker, and the gloss glossier than ever, and asked her to allow her to
+wash the queen's head at a well that was just outside the gate of the
+palace, near the royal gardens, where the water was very sweet. The
+queen consented and called her attendants to follow, but the stepmother
+was much too cunning to allow that, so she told the queen that her
+method of washing was better than any other woman's but it was a secret,
+and she would reserve it for her majesty's own private use, but she did
+not want any of the attendants to see how it was done. If they did, she
+added, the next day at the feast every lady in the court would have hair
+as glossy as the queen's, but if they went alone, her hair would be as
+much more beautiful than any other woman's as the sun is more beautiful
+than the bamboo torch that lights the way through the jungle at night,
+when there is no moon. The young queen was not proof against this
+flattery, and so the two women went alone out of the palace, the very
+guards who watched at the gates not knowing whither they were going.
+
+They soon arrived at the well, and as the queen was bending over, her
+long hair covering her face so that she could see nothing, her wicked
+stepmother suddenly drew a knife and stabbed her to the heart, then,
+calling her daughter to help, she buried the poor young queen under the
+road leading to the well. She took the royal robes and put them on her
+own daughter, Nang E, who returned to the royal palace and entered the
+royal apartments, all the attendants thinking it was the real queen
+returned from a bath in the river.
+
+That same afternoon, as the king walked through the palace, he was
+surprised to see that the wonderful singing tree was all withered and
+mute. In great distress he called for the queen and ordered her to make
+the tree sing as before, but although Nang E tried with all her might,
+she could make no sound. She tapped it softly as she had seen Nang Hsen
+Gaw do, but all in vain. It was silent.
+
+Now the king was in the habit of wearing Burmese clothing instead of
+Shan, and one day when he had gone to his room to put on his _ptsoe_, he
+found that a little sparrow had built, her nest in it. He was a very
+kind man, and so allowed the little bird to live there, and in gratitude
+to the king this sparrow was in the habit of telling him all she saw as
+she flew around the city from morn to night, and whenever the king
+wished to find out anything that puzzled him, he would often call the
+sparrow to tell him what to do.
+
+He therefore now called the little bird and asked it what ailed the
+tree, and the sparrow told him that the woman who was then in the royal
+apartments and wearing the clothes of the _Nang Me Prah_ was not the
+real queen, but a woman named Nang E, and seeing her approach, the brave
+little bird began whistling, "This is not the _Nang Me Prah_, this is
+Nang E, Nang E. Oh! Nang E!"
+
+In a great rage the king commanded his servants to call the woman, and
+when she was come into the royal presence she dared not open her mouth
+to answer the king, for she was not so clever as her mother, who could
+disguise her voice as well as her face, and she knew that if she began
+to speak the king would see that she was not Nang Hsen Gaw, so she
+remained silent. But this did not save her, for the king looked at her
+and said:
+
+"You wear the robes and jewels of my queen, but you have not the same
+face, and you are afraid to speak to me," and he immediately called his
+chief executioner to take her away and cut off her head.
+
+But even this did not bring back the music to the tree, and the king was
+disconsolate.
+
+The next morning when the guard of the royal garden went to his post, he
+saw, near the well, a beautiful _mawk moo_ flower, took it home with him
+and placed it in the _chattie_ of water that every Shan keeps in his
+house as an offering to the _hpeas_. The old mother Nai, soon after took
+her basket and went to the bazaar to buy _puc_ for her son's breakfast,
+but when she returned she was surprised to see that during her absence
+some one had swept the house, cooked the food, and that the "morning
+rice" was all ready to eat. The eating-tray was set out in the middle of
+the room. The rice and curry was arranged in order on it, and the
+drinking _chattie_ was full of scented water. She called her son and all
+the neighbors to ask who had done this, but no one could tell her, and
+in great amazement they sat down to their meal. That evening the same
+thing happened again. While she was out, the house was again swept, the
+food was prepared, and the tray arranged as in the morning. For several
+days this happened, and then the old woman determined to hide and see
+who did these kind acts. She did so, and was amazed to see that as soon
+as she had left the house (she went under the floor and looked up
+through a hole between the bamboos), that a spirit came out of the _mawk
+moo_ flower that her son had brought from the road leading to the well,
+and commenced to sweep the house. In the midst of it the old woman
+rushed up to the flower and destroyed it, so that the spirit could not
+go back to its refuge. At the same instant, it changed into the most
+beautiful woman ever seen.
+
+That afternoon, Nang Hsen Gaw, for the spirit was she, told old Nai how
+her stepmother had killed her at the well, and buried her, and how she
+had been changed into the spirit of the beautiful _mawk moo_ flower the
+guard had brought to the house, and that she would soon go back to the
+king in the palace.
+
+They neither of them had seen the little sparrow sitting on the roof,
+but she had been there all the time, and now flew off to the king and
+told him all that she had heard. The king gave orders that the wicked
+mother of Nang E should be executed immediately, and that a band of
+soldiers should go to the guard's house to escort his bride back in
+state to the palace, where she reigned many, many years, till she saw
+her grandchildren and great-grandchildren grow up. As soon as the queen
+entered the gate, the tree began to play; the withered leaves put on a
+bright hue, and beautiful flowers burst into bloom; and while Nang Hsen
+Gaw lived, the tree bloomed and played sweetest music every day.
+
+The lessons that this story teaches are: As surely as the wheels of the
+cart follow the oxen, so surely will wickedness be punished. If you sin
+you must suffer. The man who kills another will assuredly meet the same
+fate.
+
+[3] The Shans call the two front feet of a quadruped "hands." The digits
+are called "fingers" not "toes."
+
+[4] The sacred peepul tree.
+
+[5] The Shans do not usually say that a king "rules" over a country, but
+the expression generally used is that he "eats" it; a very suggestive
+and alas! too often only too true expression.
+
+
+
+
+THE SPARROW'S WONDERFUL BROOD.
+
+
+Many, many years ago, at the beginning of the world, a little sparrow
+built her nest on the top of a tall tree that grew near the edge of a
+lake. In it she laid five little eggs, and never was mother bird prouder
+than she, and all day long she flew from tree to tree chirping out her
+joy. So proud in fact was she, and so much noise did she make, that a
+monkey that lived on the other side of the lake was struck with the
+remembrance of how he had once dined with great satisfaction on eggs
+laid by the sparrow's sister, and in a few minutes he was on his way to
+repeat the performance.
+
+In vain the little bird cried and begged him to spare her brood,
+promising to show him where the sweetest plantains in all the country
+were growing; the monkey only laughed at her and climbed the tree to get
+the prize.
+
+The next moment the robber would have gotten his spoil, and this
+wonderful story would never have been told, but just then the great lord
+Sa Kyah looked earthward and saw the tragedy that was taking place.
+
+Like a drop of rain that falls from a tree when the wind blows after a
+shower, the mighty lord descended, and when the would-be robber reached
+the nest his hand entered an empty one.
+
+[Illustration: "On his way he saw what seemed to be a bed of flowers."
+Page 79.]
+
+The eggs were soon brought back from the _hpea_ country where the lord
+Sa Kyah had taken them for safety, and in due time were hatched. Out of
+the first protruded a sharp bill, and a kingfisher, bright of plumage
+and swift of wing, broke out of its speckled prison. The next egg broke
+and a buffalo came out, to be followed by a lordly striped tiger from
+the next. A terrible _hpea-loo_, with head and claws like a bird and
+body like a man, tore his way out of the next one, already looking
+around for a man whom he might devour for his first meal.
+
+Only one egg remained, and that the smallest of all, but out of it came
+a man, and the mighty lord Sa Kyah smiled when he saw him, and said that
+although he was the smallest and the last, yet he must feed his brothers
+and take care of them.
+
+One hot day in summer the buffalo that had come out of one of the eggs,
+walking through the jungle, much troubled by mosquitoes, thought how
+nice would be a wallow in a hole well known to him under the shade of
+the trees by the bank of the lake, where the sun had not dried the mud
+to the hardness of bricks as it had in every other wallow, and
+accordingly turned his huge body in its direction, and slowly set off
+toward it.
+
+On his way there he saw on the ground what appeared to him to be a bed
+of flowers growing on the bank of the lake, and after smelling it
+carefully over, leisurely ate it all up.
+
+The sun was hot, the earth dry, and the flowers had long ago died, and
+what the buffalo thought were flowers were really ten white jackets and
+ten red skirts. But when he had finished his meal he continued his
+journey to the wallow, and then with a grunt expressive of great
+satisfaction, sinking into the soft mud till only the tips of his horns
+and the top of his head were visible, he closed his eyes and enjoyed
+himself.
+
+By and by there was a great commotion in the water--shouts, laughter,
+and jokes, together with a great splashing. The lazy buffalo opened one
+eye and saw ten young girls who were having great fun in the cool water,
+throwing it over one another and chasing each other here and there. When
+they came to the place where they had left their clothes, however, their
+mirth received a sudden check. They had all disappeared! They stood up
+to their armpits in the water looking at each other with very long faces
+till, spying the buffalo in his mud bath, they approached him, and in
+the most courteous language asked him whether he had seen their dresses.
+
+The great beast closed the eye he had opened, and slowly uncovered the
+other one, but beyond this took no notice of the maids forlorn. Then,
+calling him "Kind Brother Buffalo," they begged him to answer them,
+saying that all the people who left the village to go to the bazaar
+before the sun had risen would soon be passing on their way home. The
+buffalo blew a big cloud of mud and water from his nostrils, but said
+never a word.
+
+Now it happened that the youngest of the sparrow's brood, the man, was
+in the jungle all the time. He had seen his brother eat up all the
+clothes and had heard all the conversation. He had noticed too, that
+although all the maidens were beautiful, the youngest was the most
+beautiful girl he had ever seen. He saw how straight was her form, how
+black was her hair, and that her eyes were the color of the sky when
+there are many stars but no moon, and he determined to get her for his
+wife. He therefore now approached the party and told them that he could
+help them, and that no one besides could tell them where their clothes
+were, but that they must promise that the one whom he should pick out
+should be his wife.
+
+To this they agreed, and thus it happened that he became possessed of
+the most beautiful woman in all the Shan country. So beautiful in fact
+was she, that it is said the birds stopped in the middle of a song when
+they saw her. The squirrels stopped half-way up the tree in their search
+for nuts as she walked under the trees, and her fame spread far and
+wide.
+
+At this time a hunter came wandering through the jungle in search of
+game, and saw her standing at her door. He, like everybody else, was
+struck with her wonderful beauty, and he thought to himself, "For a long
+time I have been most unfortunate. I have caught but few animals, and
+their furs have been poor and mangy. Now, if I tell the king of my
+country about this beautiful girl, he will give me a great reward."
+
+Thus reasoning he set out home and told the king what he had seen,
+enlarging upon her great beauty till the king resolved to get her at any
+cost.
+
+He therefore set out, taking with him soldiers and attendants as became
+such a mighty lord, and when he saw the object of his journey he
+acknowledged that the hunter had not deceived him, and he determined to
+take her back with him to the palace; but at the same time he made up
+his mind to go about it in a cunning way.
+
+Now this king had a wonderful fighting cock of which he was very proud,
+and which had never been beaten. It had a beak of iron and spurs as
+sharp as the knives that come from Lai Hka, and a voice so loud and
+piercing that every morning when he crowed every other rooster in the
+city scurried away in fright at the challenge.
+
+The king, therefore, said that he and the woman's husband should have a
+cock fight. He would wager his country against the other's wife. In
+great sorrow the man went out into the jungle to think over his
+misfortune, and while sitting on the ground in a most disconsolate
+manner he heard a little bird calling his name, and looking up he saw
+his brother, the kingfisher, perched above him.
+
+"O brother, do not fear," said the bright little bird. "I do not forget
+that you are my brother and have guarded me long, and now I will surely
+help you in your trouble."
+
+When the time came for the fight, therefore, and the king's fighting
+cock stood proudly up, suddenly down from a tree flew the kingfisher,
+pecked him with his long, sharp bill, and then flew away before he could
+so much as turn his head. Time and again this happened till the king's
+challenger finally stretched himself dead on the ground.
+
+The fight ending in this way, however, did not suit the selfish king a
+bit, and he therefore said it was not a fair fight, and brought out a
+large, fierce dog. This dog was the terror of the State, but the king
+said that it should fight any other dog that could be brought against it
+for the same stakes as before. The tiger brother, however, was on the
+watch, and before the dog could get near his opponent, a blow from his
+paw ended his career.
+
+Still the king persisted in his unjust course, and now declared that the
+wager should be finally settled by a fight between two buffaloes. Now
+the buffalo brother was ashamed of the way in which he had treated the
+girls in the water, and had long wished for an opportunity to retrieve
+his honor, so that he now fought with such bravery against the royal
+buffalo that he speedily conquered it.
+
+Then the king, seeing that he was beaten every time, threw off all
+disguise and said plainly that he had come to get the girl for his wife,
+had brought soldiers to help him if necessary, and he would take her in
+spite of losing the different battles, and in spite of her husband or
+anybody else.
+
+He stepped forward to take her, but he did not know that one more
+brother yet remained to be heard from, for out of the jungle with a
+dreadful yell came rushing the _hpea-loo_, his beak open, his claws
+outstretched, and king, soldiers, and courtiers all disappeared down
+his ravenous maw.
+
+The next month the fortunate man with his beautiful wife became king in
+the place of his enemy, and lived to be the oldest monarch in the whole
+of the Shan country.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE WORLD WAS CREATED.
+
+
+In the beginning of the world, many, many cycles ago, so long ago, in
+fact, that no man knows how long it was, there were no trees, no hills,
+no land, nothing but water. The wind blew the waters hither and thither,
+sometimes in great waves, sometimes in quiet ripples; the wind blew, the
+waves rolled, and that was all.
+
+Now it happened that Gong Gow, the Great Spirit Spider, felt weary with
+carrying around her heavy burden of eggs wrapped up so carefully in
+their white covering fastened to her waist, therefore she said to
+herself:
+
+"I would fain place my eggs in a safe place, but know of none where they
+can hatch themselves without danger," so she searched through the
+universe to find a suitable place, and at last she spied the water that
+is now the world, and in it began to spin her web.
+
+Backward and forward, forward and backward, round and round, in and out
+she wove, till at last all was done, and full of content she left her
+eggs in their web prison nest and journeyed away.
+
+The wind blew and drove the water hither and thither as aforetime, and
+soon little pieces of solid substance caught in the meshes of the web,
+and behold! as the time passed the solid substance became more solid
+till it formed mud and separated itself from the water, and when the mud
+had dried, lo! it was the earth.
+
+So the eggs of the great Spirit Spider were safely locked up within the
+earth; by and by they hatched, and breaking forth there appeared the
+first man, Boo Pau, and the first woman, Myeh Pau, from whom all the
+ancient people who belonged to the first race were descended.
+
+Many, many years passed and people lived out their lives, till one day
+the great earth caught fire. It burned fiercer than anybody's
+imagination can conceive, and it destroyed everything. All the beautiful
+forests with their green coverings of moss and leaves, all the cities
+which the first race had builded were burned down, till by and by there
+was naught more for the fire to consume, and it was then the end of the
+hot season; the time of wet came soon after, and the rain fell upon the
+burning earth in such torrents that the whole sky was covered with the
+steam.
+
+Now it happened that in Moeng Hpea, the far-away land where dwell the
+powerful spirits whom we call "hsangs," the smell of the steam ascended
+and ascended till all the spirits smelled the sweet scent, and said to
+themselves:
+
+"Behold, there appears a sweet smell arising from below, what can it
+be?" and there was much marveling at what could cause such
+sweet-smelling incense as that then ascending.
+
+And it also happened that in Moeng Hpea were nine spirits, five of them
+males and four females, and these being of more adventurous spirit than
+their fellows, determined to find out for themselves where the sweet
+perfume came from. So they set out on their travels downward. They
+descended faster and faster, and the faster they descended the sweeter
+became the smell, till at last they landed upon this world of ours, and
+bending down to the earth they tore great handfuls of it out and ate it
+with the greatest relish.
+
+It was morning time when they descended, and they fed upon the fragrant
+earth all day till the sun set and the shades of evening began to
+surround them, then the eldest of the spirits looked around upon his
+fellows, and said:
+
+"Brethren, oie! it is time that we ascended to our own country," and as
+the rest assented they stood up to return, but alas! they could not
+rise, they had eaten so much earth it had made them too heavy to soar,
+and from that day to the day they died none of them ever found their way
+back to the beautiful country of the Hsangs, but had to spend all their
+lives upon this earth of ours.
+
+Thus we see that it is earthly desires that keep us from the spirit
+country. We see, or we hear, we smell or desire some earthly thing. We
+get our desires, but they keep us pinned down to the earth. We cannot go
+to the spirit country because of them.
+
+When the spirits discovered that they could not return to the Hsang
+country they agreed that they would marry each other and take up their
+abode upon this earth of ours. But here arose a difficulty; there were
+five male hsangs but only four females! There was chance of a great
+quarrel, but the strongest of them, his name was Hsin Kyan, thought
+within himself:
+
+"I am stronger than any of my brothers and could easily defeat them and
+marry whom I will, but what merit would there be in that? I will ask
+them whether they would be willing to make me king and each of them give
+me of their daughters when they are old enough, then in time I shall
+have wives and power as well." Thus we see it is the man who is willing
+to control his desires and wait who becomes great.
+
+Hsin Kyan's brethren were very glad to make the agreement and thus it
+was that he became the ruler of them all. When the daughters of the
+others were old enough, they brought them to the king, and from that day
+it has been the custom for men to offer their daughters to the king.
+
+Now it happened that the universal lord, Sa Kyah, who rules over all
+spirits and men looked earthward and saw the new kingdom that was
+established; he became jealous and determined to kill Hsin Kyan and take
+his kingdom away from him. But Hsin Kyan was very subtle and cunning, so
+he tattooed himself with charms of such great strength that even the
+mighty lord Sa Kyah could not kill him. For many years they fought.
+Great mountains were thrown by each combatant at the other, but Hsin
+Kyan could not defeat the lord Sa Kyah, neither could the lord Sa Kyah
+kill Hsin Kyan.
+
+Our great ancestor Hsin Kyan had seven daughters, whose names to this
+day are remembered among us as they have been given to the different
+days of the week, from Nang Ta Nang Nooie, the eldest, after whom we
+call the first day of the week Wan Ta Nang Nooie, to Nang Hsa Ne, the
+youngest, and when the mighty lord Sa Kyah found that he could not kill
+their father, he spoke to these daughters and told them he was searching
+for one whom he would make his chief queen, and that if one of them
+would kill his enemy, their father, and bring to him his head, he would
+choose that one to be his queen and make her joint ruler of the
+universe; with him she should govern everything created.
+
+But the charms tattooed upon Hsin Kyan were very potent. Water would not
+drown him; fire would not burn him; rope would not strangle him; and he
+was invulnerable against thrust of spear and stroke of sword, and
+although all seven of his daughters tried to kill him yet they were not
+able to do so and six of them gave up the attempt in despair.
+
+One day, however, the youngest, she whom we worship on the seventh day
+of the week and because she was the smallest call it Wan Hsa Nae, was
+walking in the jungle, and as she was passing under a tree she saw a
+bird sitting upon its topmost branch. Now this girl knew how clever
+birds are, and so she said to it:
+
+"Brother Bird, oie! can you tell me how I can kill my father?"
+
+Now although this daughter was the youngest, yet she was more lovely
+than all her sisters, and the bird was so pleased with her that he said:
+
+"Nang Hsa Nae, you are so beautiful that I will tell you the secret of
+your father's charm. Water cannot drown him, fire cannot burn him,
+neither can sword or spear wound him, but there is one way in which he
+may be killed. Take you, seven strands of a spider's web and twist them
+into a cord, then with a piece of white bamboo make a bow; with this you
+will be able to cut off the head of your father and take it to the
+mighty lord Sa Kyah, and oh!" continued the clever bird, "when you are
+his queen, do not forget the good turn I have done you, and the debt of
+gratitude you owe me therefor."
+
+Nang Hsa Nae was full of joy when she learned the secret of her father's
+charm and she promised the little bird that when she became queen of the
+universe she would grant him any desire that he craved.
+
+That night when everybody else was asleep, Nang Hsa Nae crept to her
+father's side and with the bow made of the seven twisted strands of a
+spider's web killed him and cut off his head.
+
+With great joy she carried it to the universal lord. He was very glad to
+find that his enemy was at last dead, but although he had given his word
+to her, yet he would not marry Nang Hsa Nae, for, said he, she has
+killed her father although I could not conquer him. Were I to marry her,
+who will go surety for her that she will not do the same to me? So the
+wicked daughter did not gain her ambitious end after all.
+
+Not only that, however, but she and her sisters received a punishment,
+one they are even now suffering, and will continue till the world ends.
+It is this:
+
+When they found that the lord Sa Kyah would not marry their youngest
+sister or even accept their father's head, they said among themselves:
+
+"What shall we do with the head of our father? Where shall we bury it?
+Should we place it in the earth the whole world would catch on fire;
+should we throw it into the sea, all the seven oceans would immediately
+boil; what shall we do?"
+
+In their distress they went to the mighty lord Sa Kyah and in humble
+tones begged his lordship to give them advice so that they would be
+freed from the terrible trouble to which their wickedness had brought
+them. He looked at them and said:
+
+"This is what you must do. You," pointing to the youngest, "must carry
+your father's head in your arms all this year, and when the year is
+finished you can give it to the sister who is next older than yourself.
+She will carry it for a year and thus one of you will ever after bear
+it."
+
+And so it is. We know when the year ends because then come the Wan Kyap
+or washing days, when the princess who has carried her father's head for
+a year gives it to her elder sister and washes the bloodstains from her
+clothes.
+
+From these spirits all the inhabitants of the world are descended, and
+so we see the saying of our philosophers is true, "We have all descended
+from spirits."
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE KING OF PAGAN CAUGHT THE THIEF.
+
+
+Many, many years ago there lived near the old city of Pagan a famous
+robber chief who was so fierce and cruel that he made all men fear his
+name. He stole and killed and burned till the mothers used to frighten
+their disobedient children by saying, "Boh Lek Byah will get thee." He
+was a very brave and clever thief, and he became so strong that the
+headmen and elders of all the towns and villages throughout the country
+were obliged to fee him with money and goods, and if by any chance they
+did not pay this blackmail immediately it was demanded, that very night
+the followers of the robber chief would assuredly burn down their
+village and kill every man, woman, and child within it, for this was
+Shan and Burmese custom.
+
+Boh Lek Byah entered every house in Pagan. None was too big, none too
+small. He stole from the _whon's_ house as easily as from the hut of the
+poor man; it made no difference to him, till at last the palace where
+the great king lived was the only place whence he had not gotten booty.
+Several of his followers were caught and crucified, but that did not
+stop his bad actions or frighten him. In the old days, when a robber was
+caught he was taken to the jungle where the tigers are. All the tigers
+knew the place of execution as well as a dog knows worship days when
+the women offer rice and curry at the pagodas. They used to tie the
+thieves fast to the cross by their feet, hands, and hair, and when they
+had jeered at them and the women and children had pelted them with
+stones and beaten them with bamboos, everybody went home and left them
+for the tigers to eat, and thus they did to the followers of Maung Lek
+Byah, but they could never catch the robber chief himself.
+
+At last the people of Pagan city came to the Amat Loeng, who was next in
+rank to the king himself, and said:
+
+"Our lord, for long thy slaves have been in great and sore trouble, and
+unless our lord takes pity upon his servants we shall all arrive at
+destruction."
+
+"What can I do?" cried the _amat_, in a loud, angry voice, "has he not
+stolen from me? Did I not pay him two whole _ticcals_ of pure silver as
+protection money no later than the last Water Feast, and yet did he not
+rob me as I was coming home in my boat yesternight, and when I told him
+that I was the Amat Loeng, did he not laugh in my face and yet rob me
+just the same. What can I do?"
+
+"Our lord can go to the Ruler of the Golden Palace and plead for his
+slaves," suggested one of the suppliants.
+
+Now, the Amat Loeng was a very cunning man, and he knew that if the king
+heard that Boh Lek Byah had stolen so much from his subjects he would be
+very angry, and might perhaps even deprive him of his rank as chief
+amat, for it was his duty to see that all robbers were caught and
+punished, therefore after thinking for a while, he said:
+
+"My friends, listen to me; let us each give silver, as much as we can
+afford; it is better to give part of our possessions than to have
+everything taken from us. Dost hear? This silver we will give to the
+_boh_, and he will then not trouble us any more, but will go to towns
+where the people are poorer and cannot afford to give as much as we, the
+citizens of this royal city of Pagan; then shall we have peace."
+
+This advice was very good and would have been acted upon, but
+unfortunately, one of the little princes happened to be in the audience
+chamber that morning and heard what had been said. He went to his
+father, the ruler of the Golden Palace, and told the king what he had
+heard; therefore his majesty called the _amat_ to the Golden Foot and
+asked him of these things.
+
+"What is this I hear?" he demanded. "Has this wicked man robbed as much
+as the people say? Why hast thou not caught him as it was thy duty to
+do?"
+
+"Son of the Sun," replied the servant, trembling very much as he kneeled
+before him, for who would not be afraid when the king is angry? "it is
+true; but this thief is a very wicked and clever thief, besides which he
+has a wonderful charm tattooed upon his body which is so potent that it
+makes him invulnerable to wounds from sword or gun, neither can he be
+bound with ropes, therefore it hath been impossible for the slave of our
+lord the king to capture or harm him."
+
+"Then," said the king, still very angry, "get thee a charm still more
+potent than the one the robber chief hath, for if thou dost not bring
+him or his head to me ere three days have elapsed, thou shalt fall from
+thy rank of chief _amat_. Dost thou hear?"
+
+The _amat_ bowed till his head touched the floor before the Golden Foot
+and he crawled away from the presence the most unhappy man in all the
+king's possessions. Then in great haste he ran to his house and called
+all the charm-makers in the city to come to him without delay. Then when
+they had assembled before him he commanded them to make him a charm
+which would be stronger than the one tattooed upon the body of the
+robber chief, Boh Lek Byah. But the charm-sellers one and all declared
+that this was an impossibility, for the thief had upon the luckiest day
+of the whole year eaten a piece of flesh cut from the body of a murdered
+man, and so he could not be harmed in any way, neither was it in their
+power to give his lordship the amat a charm stronger than his.
+
+Very frightened was the amat when he heard this, and very frightened
+were the soldiers who had been ordered to go with him and catch the
+thief. Their wives also cried all that night, for they knew what a
+terrible man the robber was, and how angry he would be with the men who
+had dared come to capture him. He would show no mercy, and without doubt
+would kill them all, and in derision send their heads back to the city
+afterward. This the robber had done before more than once to parties of
+soldiers sent to take him.
+
+Now it happened that among the soldiers who followed the Amat Loeng was
+one who had a very wise and clever wife, and when she saw her husband
+march away and knew the great danger that he and his fellows were in,
+she went to the wife of another soldier, and this is what she said:
+
+"Sister, oie, listen to my words. If we do naught but sit in our houses
+and weep our husbands will all assuredly arrive at destruction, for the
+_boh_ is a very cruel and cunning man. Of what use will our houses be to
+us if we have no husbands? Listen, therefore, to what I say. The man who
+collects the blackmail for the _boh_ from the headman of a village
+across the river and delivers it into his hand is well known to me. His
+name is Maung Gyei, and he sells books in the bazaar. He is a very wise
+man, and knows all the followers of the Boh Lek Byah. Let our husbands
+fight the _boh_ with silver. It is sharper than a sword, and injures not
+the man who handles it skillfully. We will collect all the money we can.
+I will sell my earrings, thou canst sell thy bracelets, and the wives of
+all the other soldiers can do likewise. This will bring a big bag of
+silver, and half of it we will give to Maung Gyei. He will then call
+some of the followers of the _boh_ to a secret place and tell him that
+the Amat Loeng will give him the balance in return for the head of their
+master, if they take it to his lordship ere three days have have
+elapsed. Our husbands will then bring the head of this wicked man to the
+royal palace and lay it before the Golden Foot; they will reap much
+honor and glory for having fulfilled the order of the king and the
+country will be freed from this great trouble."
+
+Now, when the wives of the other soldiers heard these words they
+perceived that she was indeed a very clever woman, fit to be the wife of
+a great _amat_ instead of a common soldier, and one ran swiftly after
+the _amat_ and his men, for in truth they had not gone far, but were
+traveling slowly, because they feared to come up with the _boh_ and his
+fierce followers; and they were filled with joy at the good news the
+messenger brought them. At the order of the _amat_ his men hid
+themselves in a thick jungle till the money should be collected and
+brought to them.
+
+After two days and when it was very dark, a man came to them saying that
+he was the friend of Maung Gyei, and bore with him the head of the
+robber chief, and thereupon showed it wrapped up in a cloth. Then were
+the soldiers full of joy again, and they paid the money to him, and that
+night they slept peacefully, for they knew that their enemy could harm
+them no more, and that they had been delivered from the great danger
+which had been threatening them. Before they slept the _amat_ sent a
+swift messenger to the city to tell the king the good news that the
+robber chief was dead, and that they were bearing his head with them and
+would present it before the Golden Foot the next morning.
+
+Next day, therefore, at the head of his men, he marched to the Golden
+Palace, and the people of the city were so full of joy over the fact
+that Boh Lek Byah was dead, that great numbers followed the procession
+to the palace gates in the hopes of getting a glimpse at the head of
+their enemy, and everybody praised the Amat Loeng for his bravery and
+wisdom in killing the robber chief who had oppressed them so sorely. His
+wife also called musicians and dancers, and gave orders to her servants
+to prepare a great feast that night in honor of her brave husband. They
+reached the Golden Foot and knelt before the throne, but when the basket
+was opened, behold, it contained the head of another man, and not that
+of the _boh_ at all.
+
+Then did all the people in the city laugh at the _amat_ because his
+enemy had deceived him, and he fell from his rank of chief _amat_. All
+his golden umbrellas were taken away from him and given to his
+successor, and he was obliged to earn his living by selling medicines in
+bazaar, and from that day till he died he bore the nickname of Amat Toak
+Arah;[6] but the people all praised the cleverness of his enemy, the
+thief.
+
+Now, when the king saw how cunning Boh Lek Byah was and how easily he
+had deceived his servant, he determined that he himself would take the
+robber chief and thus gain great credit and renown. To this end he gave
+orders to the headman of every village throughout his kingdom that
+directly the robber should come within his jurisdiction he was to report
+immediately, and the king would send a trusty officer to arrest him. He
+did not tell them that he himself would go, therefore for a long time
+the headmen feared to obey the order of the king for, said they among
+themselves: "The _boh_ deceived the Amat Loeng, who was one of the most
+cunning of men, and will he not escape from any other whom it should
+please our lord the king to send against him? Is there any more cunning
+man in the palace now than before? When he finds out also that we have
+reported his presence to the king his mind will become hot against us,
+and he will without doubt return and destroy all our houses and kill
+everybody in our village. Nay, it is better to give him silver and beg
+him begone elsewhere," so although they told the messengers of the king
+they would follow his words, they simply held their peace when the
+dreaded robber chief was near their village.
+
+But after a long time the headman of Myo Haung, who was braver than his
+fellows, came to the palace and told the king that the _boh_ was then at
+his village, and would leave when it became dark, taking boat for Myo
+Kywe, which was a suburb of the city of Pagan.
+
+The heart of the king was filled with joy when he heard this piece of
+good news, and he gave the headman a great reward. Also he took off the
+royal robes such as is the custom of kings to wear, and put on very poor
+ones so that no one would think that he was the lord who ate the country
+of Pagan. He also took with him a sword; not the royal sword with the
+silver sheath and ivory handle, but an old dah with a wooden handle
+bound around with rattan string, and a sheath of wood, such as the
+common people carry, then he went to the bank of the river near Myo
+Kywe and waited. He waited long, but his heart was strong and he did not
+become discouraged by reason of the waiting, and at last he saw coming
+down the river a small boat, and in it a man whom he knew immediately to
+be the thief.
+
+Maung Lek Byah guided his boat toward the bank near where the king was
+seated, for he was a skillful oarsman, and when he had fastened it with
+a rattan loop to the end of his oar stuck into the soft mud at the
+water's edge he ascended the path to the village, and as he reached the
+top of the bank he caught sight of the king in his dingy clothes and
+wearing the old sword with the wooden handle, sitting on the side of the
+path.
+
+He was surprised to see a man there at that time of night, for the gongs
+which call the priests and old women to worship had sounded long before,
+and everybody in the village was sound asleep, therefore he gazed
+earnestly at the king and then called out:
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+"It is a man who wishes to arrive at the rank of disciple to our lord,"
+replied the king.
+
+"Art thou a man of the day or a man of the night?" asked the robber
+looking down at him.
+
+"Thy servant is a man of the night," replied the king.
+
+"Hast thou not heard how many of my followers have been caught and
+executed? How that the tigers at the entering in of the villages will
+not now eat oxen but wait till one of my men is tied up for them? I
+tell thee they have not long to wait either. Art thou not afraid?"
+
+"Ah, our lord," replied the king, "thy disciples suffered because they
+did not take heed and follow in the footsteps of our lord, therefore
+have they arrived at destruction; but thy servant will study thee, O
+payah, and thus will I learn how to become a great _boh_ and also to
+escape their fate."
+
+Now when the king talked in this fashion the _boh_ was very pleased with
+him, and gave him permission to follow. He also promised to teach his
+new disciple all his arts; that he would not let him ever be caught and
+would make him as famous a _boh_ even as he was. "And so," said he, "as
+thou hast a sword with thee, follow me. I will give thee thy first
+lesson."
+
+Now it happened that as they walked along toward the city the thief
+began to think within himself, "Who can this new disciple be? He surely
+comes from a high family, for he speaks not like the common people, but
+as kings have a custom of speaking. He wears the clothes of a common
+man, and carries the sword of a coolie, but yet his words are the words
+of one used to command. Can he be a spy sent by the _amat_ whom I
+tricked so nicely the other day, I wonder?" and thus he turned it over
+and over in his mind.
+
+The _hpeas_ have ever aided the kings of Burma, and now those whom the
+king had been in the habit of feeding daily were watching over him, and
+when they heard the _boh_ thus talk with himself, for the spirits can
+hear us think even when we make no sounds of words, they put it into
+the head of the robber to go to the house of the king's own astrologer.
+It was not very far and they soon arrived there. Then Maung Lek Byah
+said to the king:
+
+"Stay thou here and watch; if thou dost see or hear aught come and call
+me," but he himself went under the house of the astrologer to discover
+whether he slept or not. When he knew that the man was sound asleep he
+would draw a sharp knife which he carried in his girdle, cut a hole in
+the mat side of the house, creep in through this hole and take what he
+wished; then he would escape before the lord of the house awoke.
+
+As he was watching, however, he heard the astrologer come out upon the
+veranda so that he could study the stars, for that was his custom; then
+he heard him say to himself:
+
+"Truly this is a good thing to marvel at, for I see the star of that
+famous robber chief, Boh Lek Byah, and following it closely is the star
+of none other than the ruler of the Golden Palace himself."
+
+For a long time the astrologer sat upon his veranda pondering over this
+strange occurrence and trying to think what it should portend; but in
+vain. He could think of no solution of the mystery, so after again
+saying that it was a good thing to marvel at he gave it up and went into
+his house to sleep.
+
+Thus did the thief discover the high rank of his new disciple, for the
+astrologer knew the star of the _boh_ well and would make no mistake. He
+also knew the star of the king. Had this same astrologer not cast the
+horoscope of the robber chief and foretold which days were lucky and
+which unlucky to him, so that by taking heed he had never been caught?
+Therefore when he again came forth from under the royal astrologer's
+house and saw the king was still waiting without, even as he had given
+orders, his mind was filled with great fear.
+
+Then said the king directly he saw the robber: "O Kin Byah, thy servant
+knows a place where there are so many rubies that they are as common as
+_maknin_ seeds that the children play with in the dust; gold is as
+plentiful as iron is with us, and there is enough silk to stock ten
+bazaars. All this is within reach of our hands. I can guide thee to the
+place, for I know it well; wilt thou follow?"
+
+Then said the thief: "I know of but one place of which thou canst say
+that with truth, and that is the Golden Palace; but a man may not enter
+there and live. Knowest thou not that the guards carry sharp _dahs_, and
+that if a man is caught there without permission from the king or one of
+his _amats_, he is immediately impaled? In very truth it is a place good
+to shun and fear greatly, even as the den of a hungry tiger in the
+jungle."
+
+"True, O brave man," replied the king, "but this evening as I passed by
+the palace I saw hanging from the top of the wall a rope-ladder; we can
+climb over, take enough to make us rich for the rest of our lives, and
+run away before the guards with the sharp _dahs_ discover that we have
+been there. Thus shall we earn much wealth and glory, and people
+throughout the land will call our lord the 'Boh Who Entered the Golden
+Palace,' and all men will fear his name more than the name of a hungry
+leopard."
+
+Then were the thoughts of the _boh_ in great confusion, and he said to
+himself: "Of a truth I am about to arrive at destruction at last. I have
+had my last adventure. If I do not follow the king he will assuredly
+call out to the guard and I shall be taken. If I go, how shall I be
+delivered from the great dangers which will surround me in the Golden
+Palace? I am undone whichever way I take."
+
+Then said he to the king: "O disciple, whom I love much, I fear to enter
+the Golden Palace, for this I perceive is one of my unlucky days. We
+will therefore go to Pin Tha village, for I saw this morning a great
+number of coolies there. They were following a great prince from the
+hills. They have been traveling far to-day and are therefore heavy with
+sleep, and we can despoil them of as much as we can carry away. As they
+are very weary with their journey, none will know aught till they awake
+in the morning."
+
+"Upon what day wast thou born?" demanded the king, and the _boh_ said
+that it was upon a Saturday.
+
+"Then," said the king, "behold! this is a lucky day," and he drew forth
+from under his jacket a horoscope, which showed that this was a lucky
+day upon which a man who had been born upon a Saturday could undertake
+any deed requiring great wisdom and bravery in its accomplishment, and
+in spite of all that Maung Lek Byah could say the king led the way
+toward the palace, and the _boh_ was obliged to follow him, which he did
+with very slow and hesitating steps, for his heart had become as weak as
+water.
+
+Even as the king had said, there was a rope-ladder hanging over the
+palace wall, and the _boh_ perceived in what manner the king had left
+the Golden Palace, but being a very wise man he followed without opening
+his mouth.
+
+They passed through the palace courtyard and saw there a thing good to
+marvel at; all the guards who ought to have been watching their lord
+were slumbering, so that the king and the _boh_ gathered up all the
+spears and _dahs_ belonging to these men and carried them away, hiding
+them in a secret place under one of the houses.
+
+As they entered the palace buildings the thief became so full of alarm
+that all his strength left him and he could hardly walk. Then the king
+saw that his follower had arrived at great fear, and as they passed the
+house where the royal food was prepared, he said:
+
+"Friend, I perceive that thou art in sore distress; come, eat the food I
+am about to prepare for thee and thou wilt become strong."
+
+"Nay," said the _boh_, "that I cannot do. Can a common man eat of the
+golden food and live? This will I not do; surely I should be accounted
+worthy of death." The king would not listen to him, but entered the
+royal kitchen, and with his own hands cooked some food which he
+compelled the thief to eat.
+
+Now, the king had prepared two messes, one in which he had cunningly
+placed some opium and one without, and it was the food which contained
+the opium that the king gave to the _boh_. Therefore, after a little
+time, he said to the king:
+
+"O disciple of mine, I know not what is the matter with me. I have no
+strength and although it is death to sleep in the Golden Palace yet must
+I sleep, for if I do not I shall surely die."
+
+As he said these words his head drooped upon his chest, his eyes closed
+and he fell asleep. Once more was the heart of the king filled with joy
+and he bound the _boh_ with strong ropes in great haste and made him a
+prisoner.
+
+Early the next morning the king called the officer who was in charge of
+the guard the night before and when he was come before the face of his
+majesty, the king said:
+
+"I have a parable to tell thee. Once upon a time there was a great king
+and in his country was also a famous robber chief and, behold, one night
+the king was sore troubled with questions of statecraft so that he could
+not sleep, therefore he walked throughout his palace. As he was passing
+through the courtyard he spied a ladder hanging from the top of the
+wall. Now the thief of whom I have spoken had that very night entered
+the Golden Palace and at that same moment the king caught sight of him,
+loaded down with plunder, creeping toward the rope ladder beside which
+he stood. Then the king fell upon him and took him prisoner, bound him
+securely with strong ropes and dragged him to a safe place; but the
+soldiers who should have been watching were all asleep. What should be
+done to such guards as these?"
+
+Now the officer did not yet know that the _dahs_ of his men had been
+stolen, so bowing before the Golden Foot, he replied:
+
+"Head of thy servant's body, there is but one thing to be done, they are
+worthy of death. Their lord should pass judgment upon them without mercy
+and that immediately."
+
+"That is a good judgment," replied the king, and turning again to the
+officer of the guard, he said:
+
+"Last night I saw the great and renowned robber chief, Boh Lek Byah, in
+this palace. I took him prisoner with mine own hands, behold, he lies
+tied fast with ropes in yonder room, but all the guards who should have
+been watching were asleep. Where are their _dahs_? Let every man who has
+no sword be impaled before I eat my morning rice."
+
+Then were the hearts of the king's _amats_ full of joy when they heard
+that the thief whom they all feared was a prisoner in the palace, and
+they praised the wondrous bravery and subtlety of their royal master,
+saying that without doubt he was the bravest and wisest king who ever
+sat under a white umbrella.
+
+The king was very proud as he listened to their praises and gave orders
+that the robber chief should be brought before him.
+
+When Boh Lek Byah was led to the Golden Foot he prostrated himself, and
+the king said:
+
+"If a man be found in the royal palace at night what hath custom decreed
+should be the punishment for his presumption?"
+
+Then the prisoner said: "King above all kings, it is death."
+
+"Hast thou anything to say why thou shouldst not be impaled or given to
+the tigers to eat?" demanded the king in a terrible voice.
+
+"Lord of the world," replied the unfortunate man, "last night thou didst
+ask to become disciple to our lord's slave. Will the disciple order his
+teacher to be executed? When our lord's slave was beneath the royal
+astrologer's house he discovered that his new disciple was the Eater of
+the Country and so when our lord of the Golden Palace ordered his slave
+to enter, he would have been worthy of death had he not obeyed. Will the
+Son of the Sun execute his slave for following his words?"
+
+Then when the king heard that the robber had known who he really was, he
+marveled much at his wisdom, and said:
+
+"Assuredly thou art too wise a man for the tigers to eat. Take thou
+yonder sword, it belonged to him who yesterday was captain of the royal
+guard. Follow me and thou shalt later become my chief _amat_."
+
+[6] Literally, "The counselor who fell from his rank," _i. e._, was
+degraded.
+
+
+
+
+GLOSSARY OF TERMS
+
+
+PUC. Curry.
+
+ZAYAT. A place built for the accommodation of travelers, also used as an
+assembly place for worship, especially during religious feasts; they are
+usually built near monasteries.
+
+PARAH. (Burmese, _payah_) a god; an image of Gautama Buddha.
+
+KAM. Luck.
+
+MAU. To be skillful.
+
+AMAT LOeNG. The chief amat or chief counselor of a prince.
+
+SOIE. The Indian "_viss_"; a weight equal to about three and a half
+pounds avoirdupois.
+
+CHATTIE. A cooking pot, usually made of earthenware.
+
+HUeK. A deep rent in the earth with steep sides; a ravine; a torrent
+usually runs in it during the rainy season, but it is dry in the hot
+season.
+
+HPEA. Spirit or supernatural being.
+
+AMAT. A minister of State.
+
+HSAN. A rice bag.
+
+NANG ME PRAH. A queen.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill
+and Water Country, by William C. Griggs
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