The Owl and The Moon
The Owl and The Moon
( a tale from South Sulawesi )
One day, Sri Maharaja Mambang, the King or a fairy kingdom in Heaven, called all the wise men in his country to his palace. His kingdom was rich and his people were happy and loved their ruler. There was only one thing that was missing in their lives of the king and queen. Although they had three handsome sons, the king and queen had no daughter – and how they wished for a little girl.
“Look at the palm of my hand,” said the king, “and tell me if I’ll ever have a daughter.”
One by one the wise men came forward and studied the palm of Sri Maharaja Mambang’s hand. When they had all had their turn, they consulted each other on what they had seen in the king’s palm. Their faces were serious and they shook their grey heads when it became clear that the message written in the king’s palm was not a very good one.
At last the oldest among the wise men came forward and said, “Your Majesty, I wish to ask your forgiveness for having to tell you this news. From the lines in your hand, we see that indeed the queen
will soon give birth to a daughter, who will grow up to be a most beautiful and clever lady. However, the birth of the princess will also be the ruin of Your Majesty’s kingdom, for there is on Earth a giant ruler, Baginda Butalla, who is jealous of you. When your daughter is old enough to get married,
he will attack this kingdom and destroy it completely, unless you give him your daughter in marriage and allow him to carry her off to Earth. If you do not wish this happen, you have to keep the birth of
the princess secret, and to spare your people much unhappiness, you must strengthen your armies to fight the giant king.”
Everything that the fortune-teller said came true. Within one year, the queen gave birth for a baby girl. In their happiness, the king and queen forgot the warnings of the wise men. There were great feasts to celebrate the long awaited birth of the princess, and from all the corners of the fairy kingdom, good wishes and presents were sent to the palace. It was not long before Baginda Butalla on earth heard about the princess.
This giant king had long wished to marry a fairy from Heaven, and when he was told about the fairy princess he immediately made up his mind to marry her. He knew that Sri Maharaja Mambang would never agree and that he would have to capture his princess and carry her off by force, so he secretly trained his armies of giants preparation for his attack on the fairy kingdom in Heaven.
The years passed and the princess grew up into a most beautiful girl. Not only was she the fairest in Heaven, but she also had the most beautiful voice and could dance more gracefully than any other fairy.
When the princess celebrated her thirteenth birthday, the old fortune-teller who had warned the king before came to the palace. Once more he warned Sri Maharaja Mambang to protect his daughter.
“Where’s the safest place in the universe for my daughter to stay?” Sri Maharaja Mambang asked the wise men. “For I do not wish her to become the wife of a cruel creature like Baginda Butala.”
“The moon is the only place where the King of the Giants cannot reach the princess,” the old man answered.
So Sri Maharaja Mambang built a beautiful palace on the moon, surrounded by a wonderful garden. When the palace was finished, he sent the princess secretly to live on the moon with her old nurse, and nearly every night the king and queen would visit her. Not long afterwards, Baginda Butalla, the King of the Giants, sent messengers to Heaven asking for the fairy princess in marriage. Sri Maharaja Mambang received the messengers very politely.
“She’s too young to marry. You must ask your master to wait a while,” he told them.
The next year and the year after, Baginda Butalla sent his messengers again and again with the same request. And again and again, Sri Maharaja Mambang gave them the same reply. But in the fourth year, when the princess was seventeen years old, the King of the Giants did not want to wait any longer. Instead of sending his messengers, he went himself to the fairy kingdom with a large army.
Sri Maharaja Mambang, his three sons, and the fairy army fought bravely, but the huge giants with their deadly weapons were much strongers. Soon, Baginda Butala marched into the palace. When he discovered that the fairy princess could not be found anywhere he was very angry. In his anger, he killed Sri Maharaja Mambang and his whole family, and set the palace on fire. Only when everything was destroyed did he go back to Earth.
Great was the sorrow of the fairy princess when she heard about what had happened to her family. Day after day, she remembering the happy hours she had spent with her father, mother and brothers.
One night, when the moon was full, the princess was sitting in the garden, She happened to look down on Earth. The golden rays of the moon bathed the Earth in a clear white light, and in that light she saw what looked like a white flowers on the Earth’s surface.
“What beautiful flowers,” she said. “How lovely they would look in my hair. I wish I could pick them.”
“No, no, my princess,” her old nurse cried out. “Don’t look down. Don’t look at the place where Baginda Butala, your enemy, lives.” But the princess thought her silvery white flowers were beautiful and could not take her eyes of them.
“Let me just fly down for a little while. Let me pick one bunch of those wonderful flowers,” she said to her old nurse.
“Don’t do that, my child. If Baginda Butala finds out that you’re on Earth, he’ll capture you, and you’ll never be able to fly up to the moon again,” the nurse cried.
But the fairy princess did not listen to this warning. When the old nurse had gone back to the palace to fetch something, the princess flew down from the moon to Earth. A great dissapointment awaited her there, because it was only sugar cane pulp that was spread on the grass. And when she tried to fly up again, she found that her wings had lost the strength to carry her up to the moon again.
She grew afraid. Again and again she spread her delicate wings, but however hard she tried she did not get higher that the tree tops. Finally, she rested at the top of a tall and shady tree, and there she stayed, looking up at the bright golden moon above her.
She could see the golden palace surrounded by the green garden with the banyan tree in the middle. She could see her old nurse looking everywhere for her, calling her name. She raised her face to the moon and called as loud as she could, “I’m here! I’m here!”
But no human voice came from her mouth – only a loud bird cry, because the princess has changed into a night bird, an owl, and never again would she be able to fly back to the moon. That’s why, on moonlit nights, one can hear the owls calling longingly, because it is then that they remember how once their ancestor had lived in a golden palace on the moon.
As for the poor nurse, when she had reached every room in the palace and every corner of the garden, she knew that the fairy princess had disobeyed her and had flown to Earth.
What could she do to help her? She decided to make a strong rope which she could throw down to Earth for the princess to climb on, back to the moon. That is why, to this day, one can still see on the face of the full moon, the old nurse spinning her rope under the banyan tree, forever … and ever … and ever …
