Fouta Saepharn
A long time ago, there was a young coal miner, buoy taanx dorn.* He was a poor orphan and did not even have a real name. He had to dig coal to sell. He would mine in one area until the coal was depleted, then he would move to another area. He mined along one river until there was no more coal, and then he moved on to another river.
As he moved from place to place to find coal to mine, he lived in poverty. He barely had any clothes to wear. In those days, money did not come easily. If one was poor, one suffered tremendously.
Maybe he was being punished for something he did in a previous life. Maybe he had fallen down to earth from the immortal world to suffer in the mortal world. He continued to suffer.
At that time there was a dragon king who had a third daughter named Faam. The dragon father always complained, “Faam, you’re so bad, you will have to marry the young coal miner. There’s no one else for you to marry.” He said this to her repeatedly.
Finally, Faam decided, “I’m not getting any younger, so I might just as well go search for the young coal miner to marry.”
So she left her dragon home and transformed herself into a human. She began to search for the young coal miner, carrying with her only her bundle of embroidery supplies. She went to one place, and the people there told her he was in another place, but she continued to look for him from place to place.
She met many rich people who wanted to marry her because she was so beautiful, but she refused to marry any of them. She told them, “My father told me I should marry only the young coal miner, so I am looking just for him.”
She continued her search until she found an area where he was still mining. At one river she only found mining holes where the grass was already beginning to grow back. She was too late.
She continued to follow his trail until she came to another mining place. The banana leaves on the roof of his hut had already turned yellow. He was no longer there.
She followed his trail until she came to a third place, where the roof was still fresh, but the fireplace was already cold.
On she went until she came to a fourth place. This time she saw the fire was still burning. So she settled down and waited for him.
She waited until twilight when the young coal miner finally returned to his camp. As he got closer, he saw her and stopped. Because he did not have any clothes to wear, he covered himself up with banana leaves. He was embarrassed to meet her. Faam felt great sympathy for him, so she tore a piece of cloth from her embroidery bundle to help cover him.
She told him, “Don’t be embarrassed. I’ve come to marry you.”
Seeing how beautiful and nice she was, the embarrassed young coal miner responded, “How can I marry you? I’m so poor. I have to travel all over the country to mine coal in order to make a living.”
The dragon daughter said, “My father told me to find you and marry you. If you’re willing to marry me, I’ll marry you. We’re predestined for each other.”
Finally, the young coal miner agreed, “If you really don’t mind marrying me, then we can marry.”
Once they had come to an agreement, they had to build a house to live in. They needed to find rice before they began building their house because they didn’t have any. So Faam gave her husband a gold ring to exchange for rice.
He didn’t know that the ring was gold. Everywhere he went family after family told him that they didn’t have enough rice to exchange for his ring. Finally, he arrived at the house of a very wealthy family with a huge rice barn. There he was able to exchange his ring for some rice.
When he came home, he asked Faam, “What was that ring made of? It was so small but everyone said they didn’t have enough rice to trade for it.”
His wife replied, “Oh! You didn’t know? That was gold!”
Remembering that he had seen something like that before, the young coal miner said to his wife, “If that was gold, then I saw a lot of it where I was mining coal. In one place, there was plenty of it. I saw many pieces and dug them out and left them there. I even used one piece to make a knife.”
Upon hearing that, his wife was very glad.
The next day they went to carry the rice back home. Then they began building their house. When they finished, the young coal miner took his wife to see the gold. When they got there, the gold pieces were lying outside the coal mine, and Faam saw that they really were gold. Some of the pieces were as big as rocks. He had even used some of them to line his fire pit. They returned home and built a barn in which they stored all the gold.
From then on, they were rich and did not have to suffer again.
* bouv taanx dorn is pronounced but with a high tone, tan, with a rising tone, don. The final v and x are tone markers and are not pronounced.