In ancient times, our kingdom was ruled by an elderly sovereign. Everything would have been fine, but he didn’t have a son, and therefore, there was no heir. The king grieved and lamented. The sky, apparently, took pity on him, and soon Queen Chanthevi gave birth, but not to a daughter or son, but to a golden snail. There was a snail the size of a scoop, which is made from a coconut shell. The king learned this news and was terribly saddened. He called his closest courtiers and began to consult with them on what to do. The nobles just shrugged their shoulders in bewilderment. But one of them, the oldest and most noble, approached the king and said quietly:
- A golden snail is a bad sign, it foretells great troubles.
The king was frightened and ordered Queen Chanthevi to be driven out of the capital city.
The unfortunate queen wrapped the snail in a rag and wandered off randomly.
One evening she found herself in a mountain village and asked to spend the night with her old spouses. These spouses were childless. They listened to the story of the poor woman, and they felt very sorry for her. They invited her to stay in their house and become their adopted daughter. Chanthevi agreed. Since then, the queen went every morning with the old people to the mountains and diligently cultivated the field. And in the evening she returned home. This went on for many days.
One day they returned from the field and saw that the house was tidy and a delicious dinner had been prepared. The old people and Chantkhevi were surprised and delighted. But no matter how much they thought and wondered, they still didn’t understand who cleaned the house and cooked dinner. The next day they come from the field, again dinner is waiting. Miracles!
Queen Chanthevi decided to find out what kind of assistant was in the house. The next morning she got ready, as always, with the old people in the field, but halfway back she returned to the house, hid and began to wait. He sees that the rag with the golden snail began to move, the knot untied itself, and a handsome young man with a smart face and majestic posture emerged from the golden shell. Chanthevi ran out quickly, grabbed the shell and broke it into small pieces. So a beautiful young man appeared in the house, who immediately recognized Chanthevi as his mother and was named Sang Thoong.
The young man was healthy and strong, loved his mother and was her caring son, and honored his grandfather and grandmother.
Soon the royal palace learned about the extraordinary young man. The treacherous nobleman whispered to the king that the beautiful young man was an evil spirit and it was best to hand him over to the executioner. So the king did. Only the executioner's sword was powerless against Sang Thoong. Then the executioner tied a larger stone to his neck and threw the young man into the river.
Queen Chanthevi found out about this and burst into burning tears. Every evening she went to the river, and her tears dripped into the muddy waters. The queen did not know that her son ended up in the underwater kingdom, that the river lord did not let him die and instructed the beautiful Phanthurak to look after him. Only the river lord did not know that this beauty was an evil witch, that she took the young man to her house in order to deal with him at the right opportunity.
Whenever Phanthurak left home, she ordered Sang Thoong to never open her chambers or look into her chest. Sang Thong found this suspicious.
One day Phanthurak warned that she was leaving home for a long time. As soon as she stepped out of the threshold, the young man immediately opened her chambers and was stunned: human bones and skulls were lying around. It was then that he realized that he had fallen into the hands of an evil witch. Sang Thoong sees two jugs standing: one with golden water, the other with silver. He put his finger into a jug of golden water - the finger became golden. He quickly ran to the chest and opened it, and in the chest were clothes, shoes and a spear. Sang Thoong got dressed, put his feet into his shoes and immediately felt that he had become much taller and had acquired the ability to fly. The young man was delighted: now he would be able to fly away from the evil witch. But Sang Thoong was afraid that she might be about to return, so he quickly took off his clothes and shoes and hid it all again in the chest. And he tied the golden finger with a rag, as if he had inadvertently injured it.
After two or three days, the hostess again needed to leave the house for a long time. The young man immediately dashed into her chambers, scooped up golden water with a ladle and began to douse himself with it. If he splashes golden water on his leg, the leg becomes golden; if he splashes it on his hand, his hand sparkles with golden light. Soon Sang Thoong's whole body glowed with gold, he became like a golden statue in a temple. Then the young man opened the chest, put on the magic clothes, then put his feet in the magic shoes and took the spear. He took off from the ground and flew to where a high mountain was piled up. But before flying up the mountain, he thought of covering the mountain path with stones - just in case.
The evil witch returned home and saw that Sang Thoong had disappeared. She rushed to her room for magical clothes - but those clothes were not there. And the magic shoes with the spear are gone. Phanthurak realized that the young man had run away from her - apparently he had flown to the mountains. She rushed in pursuit of him, but the mountain path was littered with stones, it was impossible to pass. The evil witch realized that without magic clothes, magic shoes and a spear, her end had come. But before she died, Phanthurak scratched magic spells on the rock. Whoever solves these spells will gain the ability to speak the language of birds and animals and will be able to call them to help. Phanthurak scrawled spells and gave up the ghost.
The young man saw that the end of the evil sorceress had come, he immediately descended from the mountain and easily unraveled the magic spells that were scratched on the rock.
Then he went to the capital of the neighboring principality. Sang Thoong decided to hide from people that he had learned the secret of witchcraft and was handsome, so he read spells and turned into a holy fool with twisted arms and legs. And he began to call himself Chau Ngo. No one even wanted to let such a freak onto their doorstep, so Chau Ngo had to spend the night right on the street and eat what the shepherds threw to him out of pity.
But the prince of that city had no heir. Of the seven princely daughters, six were married off; it remained to find a worthy husband for the youngest, the seventh princess, whose name was Rochana. Rochana was famous for her beauty, princes from neighboring kingdoms vied with each other to woo her, but she did not like all of them. This made the prince-father very sad. Therefore, one fine day he summoned the closest courtiers and commanded:
- Order the soldiers to gather all the young men of the city, let the princess choose a groom!
The courtiers ran and immediately ordered the soldiers to gather unmarried young people from all over the city into the palace. Princess Rochana came out to them with a wreath of fragrant flowers in her hands, walked among the young men for a long time, carefully looked at each one, but never chose a groom. The prince asked his courtiers:
—Did you bring all the unmarried young people here?
“Yes, Your Highness,” answered the nobles. “Only a guy named Chau Ngo is not here, but he is such a freak, so ugly that we did not dare to invite him to the palace, so as not to offend your eyesight.”
- Call this Chau Ngo immediately! - the prince commanded. He decided to have fun.
They brought the guy to the palace, everyone was amazed at how ugly and ragged he was. Everyone avoided him, everyone turned away from him. The prince, too, could not bear to look at this freak, and he quietly looked away to the side. But then Chau Ngo approached the princess and suddenly turned into the handsome Sang Thoong. True, only the princess saw that in front of her was a beautiful young man, but to the rest it seemed as if he was still the same Chau Ngo - a disgusting creature with twisted arms and crooked legs.
Everyone froze in horror.
“Our poor, poor princess,” the courtiers began to speak.
And suddenly they see: the princess smiled joyfully and, instead of leaving in disgust, walked lightly towards Chau Ngo and put a wreath of fragrant flowers around his neck. Both the courtiers and the common people all gaped in amazement, and the princess’s ladies-in-waiting recoiled back in fear.
The prince was terribly angry: he only wanted to have fun. And he immediately ordered Princess Rochan to get away from the city along with Chau Ngo. He decided to himself that he would come up with a way to get rid of his freak son-in-law.
Expelled from the city, the princess did not grieve at all; she lived very happily with her husband Sang Thoong. They lived in peace and harmony and worked hard in the field.
But one day the prince’s soldiers came to their house, seized Sang Thoong and brought him to the palace. The prince ordered his six beloved sons-in-law and the seventh, unloved one, Sang Thoong, to go hunting. The prince, they say, wants to find out which of them is the most skillful hunter. The prince gave magnificent bows and fleet-footed horses to his six sons-in-law, and sent the seventh, Sang Thoong, bare-handed. The prince ordered to cut off the head of the hunter-son-in-law who dared to come back without prey. The six sons-in-law saw that the husband of the seventh princess was getting ready to go hunting even without a hunting knife, and let’s make fun of the unlucky hunter, but he did not listen to their caustic jokes and, as if nothing had happened, went into the forest.
There he called together various animals, and they set off on their journey. And six other sons-in-law scoured and scoured the forest, but never caught even the smallest animal. They are driving through the forest, grieving, and suddenly they see Sang Thoong walking, animals have gathered around him, apparently and invisibly, and he also talks to the animals in their language. At first, the unfortunate hunters could not believe their eyes and ears, and then they all rushed to Sang Thoong and began to beg him to share the prey and give each of them at least one animal. Sang Thoong laughed cheerfully and said:
“Well, I can help your misfortune, I will give each of you one animal, but with the condition: for this you will have to slightly cut each of you’s nostril.” Do you agree?
The six would-be hunters had no choice but to agree: living with a slit nostril is still better than being left without a head. The unsuccessful sons-in-law trudged into the palace with their meager booty. Their wives saw them, were very surprised and asked in one voice:
- How did it happen that you all came out of the forest with slitted nostrils?
The hunters did not want to tell the truth.
“Wild animals hurt us,” they muttered in response.
The prince learned that Sang Thoong had returned with rich booty, and was very surprised, because this son-in-law had neither a bow, nor a horse, nor even a hunting knife. The prince became even more angry.
Soon he again called to him his six beloved sons-in-law and the seventh, unloved, Sang Thoong, and he ordered them to fish. The prince wanted to find out which of them was the most skillful fisherman. The prince gave both boats and nets to his six sons-in-law, and the seventh son-in-law, Sang Thoong, had to fish with his bare hands. “This time this nasty monster will surely become the prey of the water dragon,” the prince gloated.
But things didn’t turn out that way at all. Sang Thoong went out to the river, called the fish, caught as much as he wanted and took it to the palace, and the other six sons-in-law, no matter how hard they fought, did not catch a single, even the smallest fish. They didn’t catch it with a fishing rod or a net. Willy-nilly they had to ask Sang Thoong again to help their trouble. This time, each of them lost the edge of an ear, but received a good fish from Sang Thoong.
The prince saw that Sang Thoong had caught a lot of fish with his bare hands, and he became more angry than before, but did not show it.
Soon a terrible disaster struck the principality: hordes of enemies approached the city itself. The prince ordered the military leaders to gather an army and crush the enemies. But that was not the case: the enemy turned out to be very strong, the military leaders died one after another. Then the prince ordered his six beloved sons-in-law to go out to fight. But all six of them were trembling with fear and did not dare to fight the enemies. The prince became angry, and he was overcome with fear. It was then that he remembered his seventh son-in-law, Sang Thoong, and ordered to call Princess Rochan to him.
“A great misfortune has happened,” said the prince. “Enemies attacked the principality, look, they will reach the walls of the prince’s palace.” Tell your freak, let him show everyone his skill and bravery. If he helps us out of trouble, we will reward him generously!
The prince ordered to find old patched armor for Sang Thoong.
“For this handsome guy, even these will do!” - he said angrily.
Princess Rochana shouldered the old patched armor and wandered home. She told her husband what misfortune was threatening her native land. Sang Thoong looked at the old armor, smiled bitterly, but still put it on himself. Then he grabbed a magic spear and went to war. He defeated many enemies, and the enemy hordes scattered.
Sang Thoong turned into a mighty hero, and the old patched armor sparkled on him like new. He saddled a war horse and rode into the capital city with a majestic appearance; residents poured out to meet him, shouting joyfully and waving their hands at him.
The prince saw this and was completely alarmed. He decided that a hero had appeared, sent by heaven itself, and therefore immediately knelt down and folded his hands in prayer on his chest.
“I humbly ask you, hero, sent by heaven itself, to welcome you to the palace.” The golden throne awaits you, now it rightfully belongs to you,” said the prince.
But then his daughter Rochana ran up to the prince, helped him rise from his knees and spoke:
- Father, didn’t you find out? This is not a hero sent from heaven, this is my husband!
The prince did not immediately believe his daughter, but when he was convinced that this was so, he realized that he had treated his son-in-law very unfairly, and he repented from the bottom of his heart. He rewarded Sang Thong generously and eventually handed over his throne to him. Sang Thoong found his mother, Queen Chan Thewi, and they had a happy meeting. The news that the golden snail had turned into the finest, most skillful prince the kingdom had ever known reached the ears of the king. He learned the story of his son, repented, and ordered his nobles to deliver him to the Chanthevi palace, and received her with honor. Since then, the king lived out his years in peace, and Sang Thoong became the king, and the beautiful Rochana became the queen. Prosperity came to the kingdom, and happiness came to the royal family.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru