There were once two brothers. The elder was poor, but the younger was very rich. The younger brother ignored the elder and kept all his care and affection for his friend. One day the younger brother said to his friend, “My friend, to-day we will go and pick and eat red berries.” So saying they went. The younger brother climbed the tree, and while he was picking and eating the berries smeared himself all over with the red juice. Then he called out, “Friend, friend, I am falling,” and tumbled out of the tree. His friend climbed down and looked at him as he lay on the ground and said, “You are no relation of mine. I shall not look after you. I will go and tell your brother and get him to come.” With these words he went away without attending to him at all. But his brother came and saw him, and looking at him said, “My brother, forgetful one, when you were alive you scorned and neglected me and kept all your love and affection for your friends.” With these words he picked him up to carry him, but the younger brother said, “Brother, there is nothing the matter with me,” and got up and himself carried his elder brother home. Thereafter the friends were friends no more, but the two brothers loved one another. That is why men say that there is nothing in life equal to the love of one’s own relations.
The Widow and the Boys of the Morung.
Old men say that when the Lhotas settled at Nungkamchung[13] a widow had a big pig. One day the boys of the “morung” took the pig, promising to pay for it with rice. But they did not pay, though every day the widow came and said, “Give me back my pig which you bought for rice.” [[182]]At last she took her iron staff and poured magic powder[14] into it and walked round the “morung,” saying, “Give me back my pig which you bought with rice. Give it back. Give it back,” tapping the ground with her staff as she went. Suddenly the ground opened wherever she had tapped it with her staff containing magic powder, and all the inmates of the “morung” were swallowed up, only those in the front room having time to jump to their feet and escape. The village all set to work to dig them out, but could not dig out a single man, only a wisp of thatch.
Stories of the Water Spirit (Tchhüpfu) are common, and usually describe a visit paid by someone to his lair in a deep pool, as in the following.
The Boy and the Water Spirit.
One day a boy went down to the Doyang to fish. When he did not return home in the evening his parents became very anxious, and in the morning his father took some men down to search for him; but he was nowhere to be found. Then his father was sad at heart and went wandering alone along the Doyang, determined to find at least the dead body of his son. As he went he saw a hair on the ground, and picked it up, thinking it belonged to his son. But it was so long that he only picked up one end of it, and walked on winding it round and round his finger. He went on and on until he had passed eight bends of the river, so long was the hair. At last he came to a Water Spirit, for the hair was one of the Water Spirit’s which he had forgotten to wind round his head. Then the Water Spirit cried out, “Let me go,” but the man replied, “You have seized my son and taken him to your home in the water. I will not let you go till you bring him out and give him back to me.” Then the Water Spirit said, “Let me go and I will bring your son and leave him here. If you do not believe me you may make me swear the most solemn oath known to men.” At this [[183]]the man let him go, and the Spirit gave him a gift of friendship, dried fish and fresh fish and fish paste, and said, “In the morning I will bring your son out of the water and leave him here. Come at the time when men go to their fields and you will find him.”
Obedient to the words of the Spirit the man came in the morning at the time when men go to their fields, and there sure enough was his son on the bank. The tale he told his father was this: “I saw a big fish in the water, and dived in and caught hold of it. It dragged me into a hole under the rocks in the pool, where there was no water. There on the dry sand was a hearth made of three human skulls. It was the lair of the Water Spirit.” The Water Spirit had not hurt the boy, but had brought him out and left him on the bank, as he had promised to his father. So the father found his son safe by the side of the water and they both went back home. The tale is remembered to this day.