Shan Folk Lore Stories from the Hill and Water Country

by William Charles Griggs

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 löng 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.