Explore the fascinating world of folktales - a Burmese tale:

The Egg born King

By Amal HEWAVISSENTI

For centuries the folklore of Burma has been inspired and nurtured by the pastoral joys and extremely rural backdrop of the country. Its folktales are a unique product of simple, unsophisticated lifestyle of Burmese.

Once there was a 'Shan' herdsman who used to take his buffaloes to a grassland and allow them to graze to their heart's content. Towards evening, he would accompany them along the plain to a pool which had an atmosphere of mysterious darkness as it was shaded by trees. While his buffaloes were wallowing in the shallow of the pool the herdsman took his flute and played sweet notes on it. A Naga dragon princess, who used to live at the bottom of the dark waters of the pool?, the music and in no time, she fell in love with the herdsman. One day she took up a human form and came out of water towards him. They instantly fell in love with each other on the solitary pasture and as time progressed she laid an egg consequent on her union with the herdsman. "My love" she said, "time has come to depart from our romance. Take this egg home and keep it under bed to be hatched". No sooner than she said this, she reassumed her real Naga dragon form and went from view into the deep waters. He resolved to act exactly as he had been requested. Henceforth, he was so passionate and impulsive over the princess that he made constant visits to the lake and played his flute far on into the night only to see her presence no more ever after.

One morning he saw a little golden boy coming out of the hatched egg! He adopted the child with lots of love and care. By a twist of fate, the boy learned the secret of his abnormal birth as he was growing older. One evening he clandestinely visited the pool and called out "O mother! my mother please show yourself before me". The Princess came out of water and the boy appealed". Can you take me to your home at the bottom?" But the Princess made a pointblank refusal of the boy's request. "No my son, I am a Naga and you're human. Though I long to cherish you lovingly to my bosom, I ask you never to come to me. An indefinite harm might come over you. But I pledge to be with you if ever you need my help. Whenever you need me come to the edge of the pool and hit the ground thrice. I'll appear before you".

With these words of farewell she disappeared into the deep waters. Meanwhile the Chinese king of Yunnan had an exquisitely charming daughter. Many young men came for her hand only to be denied access even to the palace by the king. However, the King had decided to put the suitors on a rigorous ordeal to check who would perform his best to win the Princess. For this purpose, the king built an iron tower on an island in the middle of a lake and put his daughter in an apartment on the top of the tower. He declared "Anybody who can approach the tower unaided and reach my daughter will win her as his partner". Many young men took on themselves the challenge of swimming across the stormy waters but fell to pieces by drowning.

In the meanwhile, the young man who had been born out of the egg got the news of the Chinese Princess and travelled a hard way to Yunnan to try his luck on the king's daughter. There, he found himself trapped in a dilemma whether to take up the challenge of loving king's daughter or to get lost in the devilish waves. He desperately hit the ground three times and presently his mother dragon princess bobbed up from the water. He pleaded with his mother to take him through the water to where the king's daughter was. The mother dragon carried him to the princess who gave her "royal assent" to marry him on first encounter. Sometime after their happy marriage, the old king joined the majority and the young Prince became the successor to the throne.

The new king is said to have fathered two sons and when they attained due age, the "egg" king made declarations about the demarcated regions of Burma where his sons were to reign. He further remarked "My darling sons! You will be kings in Burma. My eldest son will rule Nanchao, the southern end of Yunnan while my second son will remain the king of nine Maushan States in Northern Burma. In course of time their father's predictions of kingship came true and even today, Burmese folk reminisce the great feats committed by those kings.