Part 6 (2/2)

Now this king had a wonderful fighting c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 c.o.c.k 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 rus.h.i.+ng 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. .h.i.ther 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 Mong 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 Mong 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 a.s.sented 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.

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