When the moon stops high in the sky over the coast of the Indonesian islands, which, like ships, sail in the boundless Ocean, the old fishermen, looking up, say:
- There will be a high tide today! - and, squinting, they try to see two figures familiar to them in the moon spots.
And it started like this. Once upon a time, on the island of Java, there lived a peasant named Caiman. He had a small rice field, and from morning to evening he worked hard on it - growing rice is a difficult task, you have to constantly make sure that the tender green sprouts, sitting with their roots in the liquid mud, do not dry out in the sun if the water goes away, and do not suffocate without air if the water covers them entirely. To do this, you need to carefully monitor the clay rollers that surround the fields, and then dig passages in them, draining the water, then seal them up with clay again.
But Cayman was stubborn and strong and did the job well. He always had plenty of rice, and he was already wondering whether he should bring his wife into the house, when suddenly a rat took up residence in the hut. She dug a hole in the corner and immediately began to think about how she could deceive the person. That is why, on the very first evening, she crawled out of the hole, sat down on her hind legs and, stretching her disgusting bare tail across the clay floor, turned to the peasant.
“Listen,” she said, stroking her skinny belly and twitching her thin pink nose (she smelled rice!), “I want to make an agreement with you.” We live in this hut together, which means everything in it must be divided in half. Let's start with rice...
- Oh, you vile creature! - exclaimed the peasant. “You’ve barely crossed the threshold of my hut, and you already dare to say that?” Nobody invited you here. Go away, otherwise I will throw the spade I use to dig clay in the field at you and break you in half!
“As you know, if only you wouldn’t have to regret what you said,” the rat answered and, dragging its vile tail along the clay floor, went into the hole.
The next day, Caiman got up "pagi", which means "in the morning" in Indonesian, but the rat got up "pagi-pagi" (that's what Indonesians say if they want to say "early in the morning"). So, she got up “pagi-pagi” and ran to the field before the peasant. And when Kaiman came there, he saw that holes had been made in all the clay rollers and the water had gone away. The peasant was stubborn, he straightened them and turned on the water again, but the rat at night again ruined the rollers. This went on for several days, and Cayman realized that he could not defeat the evil animal.
Then he decided to become a fisherman, sold his field, bought a boat and wove a large strong net from tree bast. But the rat was on the alert and, when Cayman was ready to go to sea, he sneaked onto the boat unnoticed and hid between the baskets that the peasant had prepared for the fish. Going out to sea, he cast the net and began to drag it. The net was so large, and Cayman so strong, that not only the fish fell into the net, but the Ocean itself moved and, following the net, flooded the shores. And the people of the Indonesian islands, where until then there had never been tides, began to retreat in horror from the water rushing to the shore, taking away livestock and moving hearths. A lot of fish actually got caught in the net, but the rat was not dozing; it sneaked up unnoticed and chewed through one of the ropes that Caiman was pulling. The net dropped, the fish left, and the Ocean, retreating from the shore, returned and took the place that had always been assigned to it.
Cayman tried to fish for several days in a row, each time the disturbed Ocean flooded the shores, but each time the rat gnawed through the rope and freed the fish, and with it the Ocean.
And then, realizing who was spoiling the network, Caiman turned “malam” (in Indonesian this means “in the evening”) to the gods.
- O you who shake the earth and support the sky! - he exclaimed. “I conjure you: judge me with this vile animal, and if you cannot do this, then help me get out of here.”
It must be said that when turning to the gods in the evening, he chose the wrong time, because the gods, like people, get tired in the evening and their mood deteriorates. The gods really didn’t bother to sort out who was right in this quarrel and who was wrong. They ordered the Wind to fulfill the fisherman's last request. The wind fell to the ground, turned into a huge whirlwind, picked up clouds, water and sand on the shore, brought them closer, mixed them and threw them onto the Moon, which at that time was standing over the large island of Java. Along with water and sand, he threw there a boat with a fisherman and his net, as well as a rat, which continued to hide among the baskets.
That is why, I repeat, not only old fishermen, but even every boy and girl from the island of Java, every man and woman, seeing the moon “malam-malam” (late in the evening) in the sky and seeing dark spots on it, say to each other:
- Look, they are still there - the fisherman, his boat and the rat.
And if a visitor asks what a rat and a fisherman are doing on the moon, the Javanese answer:
- Don’t you know? Cayman casts a net from the Moon into the Ocean every day. He drags her, the ocean rises and floods the shores. But the rat does not sleep - as soon as the fisherman gapes, it runs up, gnaws one of the ropes, and the Ocean returns to its place. After this, the fisherman begins to repair the net, and the rat hides in the boat again. And this continues every day. You visitors call it the ebb and flow of the tide, but we know: it is the moon fisherman and the rat who do not want to give in to each other.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru