Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest

[1] If you ever get lost in the Jungle for two or three days together, you will come to a country called "What-you-will." In the chief town of What-you-will there is a royal Pleasure-garden of extraordinary size in which you may see growing many wonderful trees such as the Tree Sugar-cane and the Sweet Lemon. There you will see the tracks of Little People but none of Grown-ups. There too you may hear the noise of great mirth and merriment, but will see nothing till late at night when everybody is asleep; then the Little People come out to amuse themselves with singing and dancing and act the story of Sagembang. Very pleasant it is to see, but everyone who owns rice-fields near by has to use plenty of magic to keep the Little People from stealing his rice.

Here is the country of Princess Sâdong, in whose charge are all the caves and hollows of the Limestone Hills. She it was who was born from the big stem of Bamboo and who rules over the Little People, as well as over the wild Hill-goats.

A Prince named Rãja Saga first fell very much in love with Princess Sâdong, but when he pressed his suit she told him she would marry nobody who did not possess the White Blood (which only belongs to royalty of pure descent).

Now Rãja Saga could not pretend to possess this mark of pure descent, and so he received his dismissal and his heart was broken so that he died.

Afterwards the Prince who was born in the Foam [2] asked Princess Sâdong to marry him, but the Princess refused him also. Moreover she lost her temper and scratched his forehead with the point of her dagger, so that he fled to a far country. Here he settled, and after many years became a powerful Monarch, but he could not forget Princess Sâdong, and so he returned to her country and besought an audience. Now when the Princess saw him she recognised him by the scar upon his brow, and commanded one of her Body-guard to kill him, and thus the Foam-prince died also.

[1] This story (from Kedah) seems to be widely known in the Malay Peninsula, in most places at all events where there are lime-stone hills and hill-goats (Kambing gurun), the name of Princess Sâdong being commonly invoked by way of diverting the hill-goats from the crops. It also turns up in the Islands (of the Malay Archipelago) as the Story of the Princess who refused all her Suitors. The Country of What-you-will is called in Malay "Alang-ka-suka," or "Alang-'kau-suka."

[2] The Prince who was born in the Foam. In "The Story of Patani" it is the Princess who is rescued from the Foam and the Prince who is discovered in the stem of the Big Bamboo. Such local variations are very common, each district having its own way of telling what it regards as its own story. See however the notes to the "Story of Patani."