Two short stories from Legends of the Lao’ by Hugh Fincher and Chantho Sourinho are reproduced here. The illustrations are by Xay Kaignavongsa

Good deeds, hit boun, bring good to those who do them and evil deeds bring evil, much as physical forces cause a wheel to go forward or backward. This Buddhist belief, shared by many other religions, is the cause of all the sand dumped on the grounds of the wat. Hauled up by the truckload from the bed of the Mekong River during the dry season, the sand in the picture represents, each grain of it, a good deed, since it has been donated to the wat for construction purposes.

In the picture, it looks as though some one made a lot of merit. However, at one of the wats in Vientiane a monk once told me that a certain contractor dumped many truckloads of sand on the grounds of the wat toward the end of the dry season when sand could still be hauled out from the riverbed. Before the monk had chance to use it, the rainy season had come and the contractor came back with his truck hauled all the sand away to use on his construction projects.

"He doesn’t say a word to anyone at the wat, either when he brings it in or when he takes it away," the monk said.

It seemed somewhat sacrilegious to one with a western background, but the monk was not at all upset. If the man preferred to make money rather than merit, that was his prerogative. Some day, the contractor would feel the effects of his choice.

The Maiden with the Musical hair

A lovely young maiden lived with her parents far back in a valley in the hills. Their house high up on stilts, was on the edge of the village, next to the forest, surrounded by tall and beautiful trees, some of them covered with flowers for months at a time. The young girl, loved her parents, they loved her, and it was the happiest home in the kingdom. And that kingdom was renowned as the happiest in whole world. When hungry travellers would come, the fruit would pick itself and fall into their hands.

Sometimes the young girl would sit by the open window and comb her long hair. As she combed, her hair would make beautiful music, as if she were playing a stringed instrument. And as she combed the accompaniment, she would often sing the most beautiful songs that have ever been heard. The birds would hush their own singing and sit on the tree branches, or on the window sill, as they listened to her enchanting song. Even spirits of the forest, the Pi’s of the hills and valleys and trees, came to listen and marvel at the beauty of the maiden and even greater beauty of her song.

After she finished combing her hair, the maiden would stand up and go to work, to plant rice in the paddy fields at planting time, or to harvest it at harvest time, or to feed the pigs and buffaloes which lived under her house, or to carry water from the spring in the long bamboo containers. When she worked, the maiden tied her hair up in a knot, but at other times she would walk through the village with her long black hair falling almost to her knees.

All went well until the maiden fell in love. Her parents objected to her fiance, not because of the usual reasons parents object to their daughter’s fiance but because they could not see him. He was a pi, one of the pi, who had been coming and sitting invisibly on the window sill listening to the maiden comb her hair and sing.

So the beautiful maiden married and moved away to live with her husband. For one whole year, her parents grieved for her, and longed for her, hoping she was well. Then she came back, bringing a beautiful baby and a chest of gold.