Folktales of Bhutan

by Kunzang Choden

  The leopard was very sore and covered with lumps and bumps. Now he was very bitter and he swore that he would not let the fox get away this time. He wandered around the forest for days until he caught up with the fox once again. The fox was sitting in a yuva, a large storage container woven out of bamboo, on the edge of a cliff and rocking gently and singing to himself. The leopard jumped upon him with his most classic roar and said, “If I don’t kill you who will I kill? You wicked fox, you tricked me three times. Now there is no way of letting you go.”

  But the fox replied, “I think you and I have suffered the same fate. I too have been so badly mistreated by my family and relatives that I have come to live by myself away from them all and I am quite content to look at the whole world from this basket. This basket is wonderful. From it, I can not only see the whole world but I feel neither hunger nor thirst.”

  The leopard had not learnt his lesson and on hearing this his resolve to kill the fox vanished and he begged to go into the basket. The fox agreed after much pleading on the part of the leopard.

  “You must stay only for a very short time, please,” said the fox as he reluctantly got out of the basket. The leopard was so eager that he jumped in. No sooner had he jumped in than the fox pushed the basket over the cliff and that was the end of the silly leopard.

  Gyalpo Migkarla

  So the next day the king disguised himself as Jaw Pha La Phan Chung and went to plow the field.

  Dangbo..o..o Dingbo..o..o.. in a small house nearly falling apart with age and neglect there lived an old couple. The old man would sit by the hearth rubbing his swollen right knee and moaning and groaning in pain. The old woman did all the work in the house. One day she was rather tired and not in a very agreeable mood. While she cooked at the stove she asked the old man to pass her the ladle which was hanging near him but the old man would not even do that. As usual he just sat there rubbing his knee and moaning away. Irritated by his behavior, she said sharply, “Move this knee away, it’s in my way.”

  But the old man did not pay any attention to her request. So she took up a ladle and struck the knee with all her strength. They were both equally shocked when the swollen knee burst with a great splosh and a big ugly frog popped out. The old woman caught it by its hind legs before it could hop away and, dangling it in the air, she said, “So you were the cause of all my old man’s problems! Now, if I don’t kill you who will I kill?” She was ready to throw him into the fire when the frog croaked miserably, “Please, I beg of you, don’t kill me, I’ll be useful to you.”

  The old woman laughed and asked, “What, a frog be useful? I have never heard of such a thing. How can a frog be useful?”

  “I’ll bring home a bride,” promised the frog.

  “Ya, ya, if you can bring home a bride I’ll spare you,” agreed the old woman.

  The frog immediately went to the king’s palace. He hid under a big slab of stone and shouted, “Oh, king, I want one of your daughters as my bride!” The king asked his oldest daughter Langyamo to go and see who was shouting. She looked out and reported, “The chickens are scratching in the dirt, the pigs are browsing around and there is nobody else.”

  Again the frog called. This time the king sent his second daughter, Khempamo, to see if there was anybody outside. She too went out and came back, saying, “The chickens are scratching in the dirt and the pigs are browsing around other than them there is nobody.”

  The frog called for the third time and this time the king asked his third daughter Phurzamo, to go out and see who had called. When she looked around, she saw a big ugly frog sitting on a slab of stone. She came in and said, “There is a frog on the stone slab.”

  The king said, “Call the frog in, perhaps he has something to tell us.”

  The frog hopped into the palace and stood in front of the king reverently but boldly stated, “I would like to take one of your daughters as my wife.” The king was greatly insulted and angrily said, “You lowly, impudent, ugly frog, what makes you think that one of my daughters will agree to marry you?”

  The frog warned, “If you don’t give me a bride I’ll cry.”

  “Go ahead and cry. I am not afraid of a crying frog,” said the king. The frog began to cry. His tears flowed like two great rivers and the king’s palace shuddered and shook as if it was going to be washed away.

  “Please stop. You may have a bride.” The frog stopped crying and everything became normal.

  “Now who will come as my bride?” asked the frog.

  “None of us,” replied the girls haughtily.

  At this the frog began to laugh in a deep throaty croak-like laugh. As he laughed the entire palace began to tremble and shake. The walls began to crack and the beams caved in. “Please stop at once and take the bride of your choice,” pleaded the king.

  The king turned to his oldest daughter and asked her to go as the frog’s bride but she refused condescending, stating, “Rather than marry a frog I’ll go to the bear,” and she went and married a bear.

  The second daughter said, “I’ll marry a leopard instead of the frog,” and she too went off.

  The third girl had no choice but to agree to become the frog’s bride. The frog led his bride home. The two old people, who were so feeble with age and weak with hunger that they could not take the shock of seeing the frog with a princess, both swooned and died of bewilderment.

  Now the frog and Phurzamo lived together for many days. One day Phurzamo saw that her frog husband was not really a frog. As she secretly watched him he took off the skin and out came a very handsome young man. She at once ran to him and picked up his frog skin but he cautioned her, “Don’t destroy it. It is useful.” He then instructed her on what she should do with his frog skin. According to his instructions she shook the skin in all the rooms of the house, around the house and across the valleys and on the sides of the hills.

  “Now burn it,” he cried. And so she did.

  The next morning when Phurzamo woke up she was pleasantly surprised to see herself in a beautiful palace with everything that she could dream of. There were jewelry and clothes in her rooms. The granaries were full. Servants stood around waiting to do as she would bid them. The valleys were full of crops and cattle and horses grazed on the hillsides. She could not have asked for more. They lived happily together for many days.

  Soon Phurzamo’s sister Khempamo heard what had happened and she became very jealous. So she visited her sister with the intention of killing her and marrying her husband. She carried her leopard babies on her back wrapped in moss and tied with creepers. She invited her sister to go for a walk and to bathe in the stream. They walked away from the house and as soon they reached a stream, Phurzamo said, “Let’s bathe here.”

  But the sister said, “A kha khai, don’t you know this is an acchu? Let’s go a little further.” So they walked on until they reached another stream.

  Again Phurzamo said, “This looks like a clean stream, let’s bathe here.”

  But again the sister said, “A kha khai, don’t you know that there is the cremation ground just up the stream?” So they walked on until they eventually reached a lake. The sister pointed to the lake and said, “This is where we will bathe.” So the girls took off their necklaces, unhooked their komas, and let their kiras, fall off their shoulders and hang down from their waists. They were bare up to their waists and they began to wash themselves by the side of the lake. Then Khempamo said, “Here, let me rub your back for you,” and began to do so. After a while she tried to push her sister into the lake. Phurzamo was startled and asked, “What are you trying to do, are you trying to push me into the lake?”

  At this Khempamo apologized, saying “No, no, of course not. It’s this little finger of mine,” and she ate it up, for she was a demon. After a while she gave one big push and Phurzamo drowned in the lake.

  Khempamo then put on the necklace and the komas of her drowned sister and returned to the palace, pretending to be her sister. Although the king did not se
e a difference the child at once saw that this was not her mother and began to cry and fuss. Many days passed and the king began to realize that there was something different about his wife but he was still not sure. Before long it was too late and he was completely under her control.

  Now it happened that the king owned some fields near the lake. One day one of his servants called Jow Pha La Phan Chung was plowing around the lake when suddenly a tall bamboo grew out of the lake. A bird sat on the top of it and began to sing. It sang, “Jow Pha La Phan Chung, J ow Pha La Phan Chung, how is my child, what does the demoness feed my child? What does she serve Gyalpo Migkarla and what does she give you?”

  Jow Pha La Phan Chung at once recognized the bird to be Phurzamo and replied, “The demoness feeds your child ash, the king karmatekpa and me rice water.”

  On hearing this the bird quickly disappeared into the water.

  When Jow Pha La Phan Chung returned home in the evening he told the king about his encounter with the bird. So the next day the king went to plow the field near the lake, but the bird did not come out. Disillusioned the king told Jow Pha La Phan Chung that the bird had not come out of the lake. “She probably recognized you. You had better disguise yourself tomorrow,” he suggested.

  So the next day the king disguised himself as Jow Pha La Phan Chung and went to plow the field. After a while a tall bamboo grew out of the lake and a small bird sat on it. Again the bird sang the song asking after her child and Gyalpo Migkarla. The king spoke to the bird and said, “If you are indeed my wife fly onto the back of my ox.” The bird flew onto the hump of the ox. Then the king again said, “If you are truly my wife fly onto the horn of the ox.” The bird flew onto the horn. The king then picked up the bird and took it home. He put the bird in a golden cage and looked after it lovingly.

  One day the king had to go on a journey and when he returned he realized that the demoness, Khempamo, had eaten the bird. “Please tell me, is there nothing left of my bird?” pleaded the king.

  “There may be some bones in the refuse behind the door,” replied Khempamo. So the king patiently sorted out every bit of the refuse behind the door until he found a tiny bird bone. The bone spoke saying, “Sang tang, sur tang, dhar dang gochen nang la pud. (Burn incense and other offerings to the spirits and wrap it in brocades and silk).” So the king washed it, burnt incense, wrapped it in silk and brocade and put it in a small container. Every day he repeated the same procedure, each time increasing the size of the container and each time the bone would grow bigger and fill the container so that eventually he placed the bone in a clean room, burnt incense, and covered it with silks and brocade. When he went into the room the next morning he was filled with immeasurable happiness when he saw wife standing there more beautiful then ever.

  The royal couple beseeched their tsawa lama to come to their palace and perform the rites of subjugation to subdue the demoness Khempamo. The demoness was thus vanquished and the king and the queen could now once again live in peace, prosperity and happiness.

  (We often refer to a person as being mikarla or white eyed if they do not see the obvious flaws in a person.)

  Bum Sing Sing Yangdonma

  “What can you do for me?” asked the sinpo, not relenting in one way or the other.

  Dangbo..o..o Dingbo..o..o.. in a small village in the middle of a narrow valley surrounded by mountains, somewhere in Bhutan, there lived a young girl. Her mother had died a long time ago so she lived alone with her father. The father worked on the narrow strips of land along the river banks where he grew wheat and barley. The girl wove beautiful fabrics at her backs trap loom which was hung on the little porch outside their house. Every day she sat at her loom working intricate designs into the fabrics that she wove.

  One day she was sitting at her loom weaving when a raven flew by and dropped a piece of a fruit in front of her. She picked it up and looked at it. She had never seen a fruit like this before but it smelled so sweet and looked so temptingly good that she ate it and it was the most delicious fruit she had ever eaten and she longed for more. At sunset her father came home from the fields and she excitedly told him about the bird and the fruit and asked him to get her some more. The father said, “My daughter, this is not an ordinary fruit. It is a mandarin which grows only in the sinpo’s orchard.” But the daughter pleaded and begged as one bewitched, “Apa, please, I must have more of this fruit or I shall never be happy.”

  The orchard was in the next valley although the sinpo himself lived in the distant sinpoiyul. Nobody even dared to go near the orchard. The poor father, unable to deny anything to his only daughter, reluctantly but eventually agreed to go and steal some fruit from the sinpo’s orchard. In the darkness of the night the father headed towards the sinpo’s orchard stealthily, creeping on tiptoe. When he reached the orchard he saw that the sinpo was sitting, and leaning against the tree, and was fast asleep. He was snoring fiercely. The father crept up to the tree. The sinpo continued to sleep on and the brave man climbed up the tree very quietly. The sinpo still slept on. Now the father was among the branches plucking the ripe fruits and filling up his bag. Soon the bag was full and it grew heavy. But he wanted more so he continued, plucking more and more when, suddenly, the strap of the bag broke and the mandarins fell down, with the bag and all. One mandarin struck the sinpo on the head and he woke up with a start. The father shivered as he climbed down the tree and faced the ferocious sinpo.

  The sinpo was furious and roared, “I am going to kill you. You not only stole my mandarins but also had the audacity to throw one at me.”

  “I beg for your mercy. I have done you wrong. I will do anything for you if you will spare me my life,” pleaded the father.

  “What can you do for me?” asked the sinpo, not relenting in one way or the other.

  At this, the father said, “Anything. Anything at all.”

  So the sinpo said, “If that is true, then I want your daughter to come as my bride.”

  This was a terrible shock to the father of a single daughter, one who was loved so dearly, but he could not refuse this proposition as he had agreed to do anything. As a last resort he added a condition. “I will send her to you if you can find out her name.” The sinpo agreed.

  The sinpo asked a pig to go and find out the girl’s name. Quietly the pig hid in the bushes and waited for someone to call the girl by her name. Before the end of the day he heard the father call his daughter and the pig learnt the name. He rushed home, all the time repeating the name, “Sing Sing Yangdonma, Sing Sing Yangdonma,” for that was the name of the girl. Just before he reached the sinpo’s house he saw some thick juicy roots by the wayside and he decided to have a quick browse. He enjoyed the roots so much that he stayed on until he had had his fill and he had forgotten the name. When he stood in front of the sinpo all he could do was grunt, “Yoush Yoush,” as all pigs do. The sinpo was angry and had him for his dinner.

  On the second day the sinpo sent a monkey to find out the girl’s name. The monkey hid in the branches of a tree near the girl’s house until he too found out the name. He rushed home swinging from tree to tree and repeating the name until he came across some ripe golden bananas. He stopped to eat the bananas and forgot the name. When the sinpo demanded to know the name all the monkey could do was bare all his teeth and chatter, for although he scratched his head sore he could not remember the name. Annoyed by the monkey’s failure the sinpo ate him too.

  On the third day the sinpo sent a honey bee. She sat patiently on the window sill all day until she found out the name of the girl and then she flew to the sinpo. She buzzed along, all the way repeating the name, “Sing Sing Yangdonma, Sing Sing Yangdonma, Sing Sing...” The sinpo was pleased and the bee was not eaten. Even to this day the honey bee still says, “sing sing sing”.

  The sinpo at once went to the house of Sing Sing Yangdonma and took her away with him. They had to travel for many days past many mountains and valleys. One day they passed a magnificent valley with beautiful hues. The sky
was ablaze with the richest colors. The mountains and the valley had tinges of all the colors. Even the trees, plants, and animals were colorful and bright. Sing Sing Yangdonma asked, “Is this where you live?”

  “No, somebody else lives here. Za lives here.”

  Then they reached a huge rocky mountain where everything looked red. There was a big red dzong among the rocks. Sing Sing Yangdonma asked again, “Is this your house?”

  “No, it’s somebody else’s. It belongs to Tsen.”

  Finally they reached a huge valley that was barren and bare. Everything had an ashy-gray appearance. In the middle of this emptiness stood a huge monstrous house. The house was built up of bones of every kind. The pillars were made of human thigh bones and the roof was covered with human skins. Sing Sing Yangdonma was horrified and filled with intense depression. There was not a dog nor a human to be seen or heard. An eerie silence filled the atmosphere. She knew that this was the house of the sinpo.

  On reaching the house the sinpo at once tied Sing Sing Yangdonma in a big basket and hung her upside down from the ceiling. He told his daughter to keep watch on her. Sing Sing Yangdonma sank into deep despair for she knew that she could never escape from the sinpo and she began to cry as if her heart would break. All of a sudden she had an idea. She began to sing from the basket, “I am so happy in this basket, I can see India and I can see Tibet. I never want to get out of this basket.”

  The words of the song soon caught the sinpo’s daughter’s attention and she became very curious. She listened to the song carefully and it was the same again and again. Finally she asked Sing Sing Yangdonma, “Can you really see India and Tibet from the basket?”

  “Of course, that’s why I would never want to get out of the basket,” replied Sing Sing Yangdonma with feigned cheerfulness.