Many years ago, on the shore of Lake Tempe, there grew a tall and spreading vajo tree. There was a dilapidated hut under the tree, and an old fisherman and his wife lived in it. They had no children.
One day the old man, as always, went to the lake to fish. That day he was unlucky: no matter how much he cast the net, he always pulled it out empty.
Once, when he pulled out the net, he found a piece of bamboo in it. The old man had no use for bamboo, so he threw it into the water. I pulled out the net another time and the bamboo was there again. The old man got angry and threw the bamboo away so as not to catch it again. But the third time, instead of fish, he came across bamboo. The day was coming to an end, and he still hadn’t caught a single fish; but the bamboo just floated into his hands. Finally he thought: “I’ll take this bamboo home, since it’s so stubborn. Who knows, maybe it will be useful to me later.”
The old man came home and put the bamboo on the steamer, where, as usual, kindling and corn cobs were drying.
In the evening, his wife began to prepare dinner. The fire flared up, smoke poured upward. Suddenly a thin voice was heard:
- Oh, don’t add more, grandma, I’m hot. The old people were surprised:
-Who is saying this?
As soon as they started cooking again, the same voice came again. They began to search and finally realized that the voice was coming from bamboo.
The old man took the bamboo and began to cut it. When he cut his knee from below, a voice from inside said:
“A little lower, grandpa, otherwise you’ll cut my leg.” Then the old man began to cut from above, and from the bamboo he heard:
- A little higher, grandfather, otherwise you’ll hit your head.
The old man slowly trimmed the bamboo from top and bottom. Well, they and the old woman were surprised when they saw that there was a little boy lying inside.
The old fisherman named the foundling “Son of Bamboo” and raised him as one. As the boy grew older, he became very mischievous. All day long he wandered through the forest or rode a boat on the lake. But the old fisherman never scolded him and loved him as before.
Since the Son of Bamboo began to live in the fisherman's family, good luck has come to the house. Expenses became lower and incomes increased, the old man caught a lot of fish every day, and the harvests were great. Residents of distant villages, having heard that there was a lot going to the fisherman’s house and little coming from the house, began to move to Lake Tempe and also fish there. The lake gave fishermen rich catches.
It had been a long time since this place had been quiet, but now every day new people came here. Little by little, a rich fishing village grew up around the Vajo tree.
One day, when the Son of Bamboo had already grown up, the old fisherman had a dream. In a dream, he saw that the princess of the Majapahit state had pain in her eyes and she became blind. Many doctors treated her, but she still saw nothing. Then the Raja ordered an announcement throughout the country: whoever can cure the princess will give her as his wife.
[Majapahit is a Javanese state that existed from the 13th to the 15th centuries, i.e., before Europeans began penetrating Indonesia. It was the last major native kingdom, uniting most of Indonesia under its rule during its heyday. ]
The next morning the old fisherman told his dream to his adopted son. Hearing about the Raja's promise, the Son of Bamboo wanted to try his luck in Majapahit.
He went, climbed a coconut tree and picked a nut. Then he split the nut in half, threw both halves into the water, stood with his feet in them and swam. First, he sailed on Lake Tempe, then went down the Walanay River and found himself in Bone Bay, and from there he sailed into the Java Sea. Having reached Java, he entered the mouth of the Brantas River, where the city of Surabaya now stands, and sailed to the city of Majapahit. There they actually told him about everything that the old fisherman had seen in his dream.
The next day the Son of Bamboo came to the palace. A crowd of doctors gathered in the palace, but all their medicines did not help the princess. The son of bamboo bowed to the rajah and said that he was undertaking to cure his daughter.
- Well, try it! - said the Raja. “If you really cure the princess, you will get her as your wife.” But if my daughter remains blind, your head will be cut off. Do you agree?
“I agree, sir,” answered the Son of Bamboo. At night, the Son of Bamboo came to the bank of the Brantas River with an empty basket. He lowered it into the water and began to call all the surrounding eels. Apparently, invisibly, eels swam towards him, and they all rubbed against the basket, so that in the end its walls were overgrown with a thin film of eel mucus.
When the basket stopped leaking, the Son of Bamboo took it and went to the palace to treat the Rajah's daughter. The Raja ordered him to go to the princess's chambers and apply the medicine to her eyes, but the Son of Bamboo wanted the Raja to do this himself; it was better for him to wait outside the doors. They argued for a long time, but still the rajah had to anoint the princess’s eyes with mucus himself. As soon as he did it, she despised it, and her illness passed without a trace.
A few days later, the Son of Bamboo married the princess and began to live in her palace. Time passed, and the rajah's daughter gave birth.
One night, the Son of Bamboo lay in his bedchamber and heard the maids talking behind the wall.
“It’s a pity that the princess’s son will never sit on the throne: after all, his father is a simple one,” said one.
The Son of Bamboo became sad, thought about these words and told his wife about everything - and this often came to her mind. She fell in love with her husband very much, even though he was not of royal family, so she agreed to go to his home, on the island of Sulawesi.
On the appointed day they left Majapahit. The most faithful maids swam with them - each on halves of a coconut. They soon arrived at the place. The rajah's daughter did not want to live in a hut: she needed a palace no worse than the one she had in Java. The son of bamboo asked the almighty god to fulfill his wife’s wish, and instantly her former palace found itself near the vajo tree.
The village on the shore of the lake grew and finally became a city. People called this city Si Engkang, which means “Equipped with everything necessary,” and now it is called in short: Singkang. The king's daughter became the ruler of this city, and her principality was named Vadjo, after the tree near which the old fisherman's hut once stood.
To this day, the grandchildren of the Son of Bamboo and the Rajah’s Daughter do not eat eels: after all, they once restored the princess’s sight.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru