Fouta Saepharn
In the olden days people hunted flying bats about the size of cats. The claws from these bats were used as good luck amulets to protect against bullets and knives. Everyone wanted to have these amulets, and when the fruit ripened, people built houses in the treetops and waited for the bats to come at night.
Once there was a man whose ancestor spirits had been wicked and sold him to the tiger spirit. But they had already made an agreement to sell him to the earth spirit who guards all the animals in the world of the living.
One day this man went to hunt bats. The tiger spirit decided to go get the man, and he told all the other spirits his intentions except the spirit of the burned broomsticks. The tiger overlooked the broomstick spirit which felt greatly offended, so it went and told the bat hunter, “Later tonight, when someone calls you from the top of the mountain, you must not answer. If you do, then you’ll die. Your ancestors have sold you already to the earth spirit. The tiger is going to come to kill you.
During the night when the man was up in the treehouse, he suddenly woke up and heard a voice calling his name, “Please hurry home! Please hurry home! Someone is very sick at home!”
He kept quiet and didn’t answer the call. He prepared his gun and stayed on guard. A moment later, the call came again. “Please hurry home! Please hurry home! Someone is very sick at home!”
He still didn’t answer. Call after call, the voice sounded closer and closer each time.
Finally the voice said, “You little ingrate! I call you and you don’t come home. I’m going to teach you a lesson!”
He heard the noise of something coming toward him. When it was almost there, the noise stopped. Suddenly he heard a jumping noise, whooz, coming toward him. It went halfway up the tree and fell. Boom! Then it began to advance up the hill a little bit further. It stopped, then it jumped, whooz!, toward him again. It came up closer and fell. Boom! Again it moved up the hill a little higher and jumped again. This time it barely missed the bottom of his treehouse and fell again. Boom!
At that moment, the hunter heard a stranger passing along the road playing a violin. The stranger was on his way to the hunter’s house to meet his daughter. Upon hearing the sound of the violin coming, the tiger stopped coming after the hunter, and instead, it went toward the stranger.
When the tiger had almost reached the roadside, the hunter heard the violin stop. Plang! Then he heard the noise of jumping, thump, thump, thump three times. He thought the stranger was dead, but then he heard him say, “You think you are so strong? Now, I’ve got you!”
Upon hearing that, he realized the stranger had killed the tiger. He quickly climbed down the tree and began to run after the stranger. The stranger heard someone chasing him, so he started running as fast as he could. When one turned a corner, the other followed. When the stranger reached the hunter’s house he went into the daughter’s bedroom and hid there. He was afraid to move.
When the hunter got home, he told his wife, “Hurry! Go to the chicken coop, get a chicken, and cook it.”
When it was prepared, he told his wife to go to his daughter’s room and invite the man to come eat with him. His wife was afraid and insisted that there was no one in their daughter’s room. Without giving any explanation, her husband insisted that there was someone there. Finally she had no choice but to go get the man.
When the stranger was told to come out, he was so afraid that he began to cry. He didn’t know what to do. But he had no other choice, so he and the girl agreed to come out.
The father invited the man to eat and drink with him. The father proposed a toast. “Tonight, if it had not been for you, I wouldn’t be alive to come home. I would have been killed. Luckily, you saved me. You helped me by killing that tiger. My moment of anger has passed. Now, this daughter of mine, I’ll let you marry her for free. I won’t ask for bride money or anything else. Go ahead and marry my daughter. Start preparations for the wedding, and then you can take my daughter with you.”
Only because he killed the tiger, the stranger married the bat hunter’s daughter for free.