The most northerly karst mountain alongside the Thai Southern Line has an interesting story hidden inside. Here goes…
Once there was a king with two wives. His ‘senior’ wife gave birth to a son – Prince Sang – that was born in a conch shell. But the ‘junior’ wife was jealous and successfully schemed to have the new mother and Prince banished from the Kingdom.
Eventually, the Prince was separated from his mother, and found refuge in the home of a giant lady who live in a mountain. And this mountain to the West is the mountain the Giant lady was said to have lived.
The lady giant accepted Prince Sang but had one rule: don’t jump in the golden well that was hidden within the mountain. So, of course, the Prince jumped in the golden well, and he emerged all golden, shiny, and beautiful.
To escape the giant’s wrath, he put on a mask that made himself look ugly, and changed his name to Chao Ngo. He slipped away and found himself in the nearby Kingdom of Samon, where the King had 7 unmarried daughters, and was at the time ordering all surrounding kingdoms to dispatch their sons so that the daughters could choose their husbands.
The last daughter to choose a husband, the youngest, was the only one who had seen his beautiful golden body beneath his ugly mask, so she of course chose Prince Sang as her husband. The King of Saman got really miffed at this, and banished Prince Sang out of his kingdom.
This time, he took his new wife and they hid away in a rice field. They then heard that the King had ordered all his new sons in law – except Prince Sang, who he wanted dead – to bring him a bounty of 100 fish and 100 deer. So Prince Sang conjured up the fish and deer with magic – oh, you didn’t know he could do magic, well he can – and when he presented them in front of the King he took off his mask and revealed his golden body and the King decided he was alright after all.
The end.
Now, I’m not sure what you think of the story, but if I were to try to summarise Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or Dracula, the Bible for that matter, in just one minute, it is likely to sound equally convoluted.
