Chiem Meng Saephan
A long time ago there was a poor mother and her son. The other villagers always looked down on them. When the villagers went out hunting and killed a big animal, they wouldn’t give any meat to the poor mother and her son.
One time the villagers killed a big deer. They didn’t give any meat to the poor mother and her son. They only gave them the deer intestines. The mother and her son refused to eat them and left them hanging on one of the house posts.
The next day an old man with long mustaches came to the village. He didn’t ask directions from anyone. He just went directly to the house of the poor mother and her son.
He asked them, “Have you seen anyone kill any game these last few days?”
They answered, “We don’t really know. However, yesterday afternoon, the villagers came and gave us some deer intestines. They didn’t ask us to go help clean the animal, and they didn’t give us any meat, just the intestines.”
The old man asked, “Where are they?”
They answered, “Oh, they’re inside the house hanging on the post.”
The old man requested, “May I please go see?”
They agreed, and the old man went inside the house to see the intestines. He recognized them. He said, “They’ve shot and killed my son. Yesterday afternoon my son was feeding up the stream. I didn’t see him come home, so I came to look for him today. I talked to you today, and I’ve found out the truth.”
There are two types of deer. There is the animal deer and the underwater deer who is really a dragon. In Mien, the word for ‘deer’ is jung, and for the dragon, jung-hungh. In this case, the underwater dragon had come out of the water and transformed itself into an animal deer. And the people had hunted and killed it. They had mistakenly killed a dragon.
The mother and the son repeated, “They didn’t give us any meat. They only gave us those intestines.”
”Oh, how lucky that you didn’t eat them!” said the old man, who was really the dragon king in human form. “It’s very lucky that they looked down on you.” He continued, “We feel pity for you. You shouldn’t live with the villagers anymore. You should move up to the top of the village and build a little shack there to stay in temporarily. Otherwise, I’m afraid that when we come later, we will not be able to spare you. You might die.”
So the frightened mother and her son decided to move. They began to build a small shack just above the village.
The old man returned and said to them, “Today we’re here waiting for you to finish building your home. If you can’t finish it today, you can continue tomorrow. But tomorrow evening don’t be frightened. Even if there’s a storm or hail comes down heavily you shouldn’t e frightened. And you shouldn’t go outside to see.”
A big thunderstorm came that night. It rained all night long. When they woke up the next morning, they went outside and saw a huge lake. There were no more houses. The whole village had been sucked down below the ground by the dragons. Only the mother and her son survived.
Fortunately, there had been a rich family. Their buried silver was exposed after the water dried up. So the poor mother and her son took it and became rich.