The ghost wailed in pain as his body scalded and charred in the hot butter.
Dangbo..o..o Dingbo..o..o.. there was a widow who lived with her only son. Soon after the son was born the father had died and she had brought up the child in the best way she knew how and taught him everything that she possibly could. Now he had grown into a strong young man and he looked after her very well but she was lonely and she often wished she could remarry.
The son was a hard-working conscientious young man who did all the work. One day while he was out in the forest collecting firewood he met a ghost. This hungry ghost with ash-gray skin and red gaping mouth looked at him through his dark eyes which had sunk into the depths of his sockets and hissed, “I am going to eat you.” The boy who was not only strong but remarkably brave as well said, “How can you kill me without a fight? Let’s have a fight tomorrow and if you win then you can kill me and eat me.”
The ghost had to agree, for even ghosts have little power if they cannot evoke any fear in their victims. Fear in victims empowers spirits and ghosts, who then are capable of harm and destruction.
The next day the boy went to the forest at sunrise. He took his bow and his quiver full of arrows. The ghost did not come at the appointed time. They should have met in front of the big black boulder in the forest when the first rays of the sun touched the tops of the cypress trees on the hill. So the boy decided to lie in wait for the ghost. He hid behind a thick bush and waited. The ghost eventually came from the other direction, hoping to ambush the boy but instead he had a surprise waiting for him. As the ghost wandered around looking for the boy the latter shot his arrow right through the ghost’s heart. He then chopped off the ghost’s head and took it home and hung it in the corner of the roof as a warning for the other ghosts to keep away.
The boy warned his mother not to look at the head. But one day as the boy was out in the fields the mother happened to look up at the head. This was the chance that the ghost had been waiting for. Sobbing pathetically he begged her to listen to him. “Please listen to me. There has been a mistake. Your son mistook me for a ghost and killed me. Look at me, I am not a ghost. Please take me down and I will tell you something.”
The mother was bewildered to see a head that could talk, but being rather foolish she took down the head and asked, “What do you have to tell me?” The ghost at once found out how foolish this woman was and decided that he could use her. “I am a very rich man. If you listen to me and do as I tell you my body will grow back in time and then I will marry you. Once you are my wife you will never have to do any work and you can have anything you want and you will never be lonely again. But first we must get rid of your son as he is very dangerous.” This simple woman became quite excited at the prospect of marriage, for she had by now become preoccupied with the idea of remarriage! Easily convinced, she was ready to conspire with the ghost to get rid of her own son. “What must I do?” she asked, almost too eagerly.
The ghost then instructed her to take his head to the cave in the forest and feed him every day so that his body could grow back. The ghost said, “Now you must pretend to be sick and tell your son that only the milk of a lioness will cure you.” The ghost was sure that the boy would be mauled and killed if he tried to get milk from a lioness, for wild animals with young are extremely protective and fiercely aggressive.
After she fed and put the head in the cave the mother took to her bed and began to moan and groan loudly until her son came to her side. Full of concern he asked her how he could help her. Just as the ghost had told her, she asked him to get her the milk of a lioness.
In sincere eagerness to help his ailing mother the son sought out a lioness with cubs. He lured one of the cubs and killed and skinned it. He put on the skin over himself and suckled with the other cubs and filled a small container which he held, concealed under the skin. He took the milk to the mother but she still did not recover. She continued to moan and groan, saying, “This illness is more serious than I had thought. The medicine was not right.”
Now the ghost was fearful, for this boy was surely an extraordinary man. So he spoke to the woman and he asked her to send the son to the land of the demons where he would definitely be killed. So one day the mother called her son to her side and said, “Aye, my son, you have been good to me, but only one thing will make me better. I need the all-curing medicine. This medicine is only found in the fruit that grows in the land of the demons.”
The son replied, “I will do anything if there is a way to cure you.” He then set off for the land of the demons.
The boy ventured into the unknown for many days. He climbed nine mountains and crossed nine valleys, numerous gorges and ravines before he reached the land of the demons. He went into the house of the demons and hid in the attic of the house. He watched the demons and he saw that they ate the fruit from a particular tree every day. The fruit tree was in the middle of the lake but they did not go to pluck the fruit themselves. They sent their maid, who was a beautiful human girl. The girl was in a state of perpetual slumber for the demons whipped her every morning with a golden whip and put her to sleep. So this beautiful girl lay sleeping peacefully for the whole day. When they came home in the evening and wanted more fruit they whipped her with the silver whip and this roused her out of her deep slumber and she did their bidding. She would then sit in a big golden frying pan which flew across the lake. She then plucked some of the fruit and flew back in the frying pan, bringing with her the sustenance for her obnoxious masters.
The boy waited until the demons had all left the house to go to their various works of destruction. He then came out of his hiding place. He took up the silver whip and whipped the girl. She woke up from her deep deep slumber. She was amazed to see a human being and asked, “Who are you and where are you from?”
The boy told her who he was and asked her to help him. The girl readily agreed for she had been waiting for an opportunity to escape from her monstrous masters. “But we must hurry because the demons will come home soon,” she cautioned.
Then the two of them sat in the golden pan and crossed the lake. The tree was guarded by snakes, and when they sensed the presence of an intruder in the pan they began to attack them. With gaping mouths exposing their lethal fangs, these monsters raised up their heads and darted at them aggressively. But the boy was a skillful archer and he began to down them one by one. In the meantime the girl plucked the ripe juicy fruits from the tree, hoping that at least one of them would be the health-restoring fruit. As the last snake writhed in pain and died there was a sinister rumble as the demons realized what had happened. But it was too late, for the golden pan was already high up in the air flying with the speed of the wind.
The magical pan flew quickly across valleys and over the mountains and soon they were in the house of the boy. Having eaten all the fruits the mother could no longer pretend to be sick.
No longer burdened with an ailing mother the boy resumed his work in the fields while the girl stayed home to help the mother with the housework.
The mother was always a little hostile and very secretive, and the girl grew uneasy and suspicious. One day she saw the mother secretly preparing a bundle of food. She watched and followed her as she began to head towards the forest. The mother went into a cave and soon she heard her talking to someone. She tiptoed to the entrance of the cave and peered in cautiously. She was appalled on seeing that the mother was feeding an ash-colored man with bloodshot eyes and hair that stood on end like the quills on an agitated porcupine. “This is a ghost,” thought the girl, shivering all over. As she strained her ears to listen to their conversation, she heard the ghost say, “Now we have tried to kill the boy and we have failed. The surest way to get rid of him is to poison him.”
“I know my son likes to drink ara. I will give him some poisoned ara this evening,” offered the foolish mother.
The girl could hardly wait for the boy to come home that evening. Having told him all that she had seen and heard she added, “And they plan to poison you this evening.” The boy was shocked and bitterly hurt when he realized that his own mother had contrived with the ghost to kill him. But he was no fool and he knew that he had to defend himself. So he began to plan his counterattack. He found a zang and filled it with butter and let it boil on the stove, then he fitted it with a wick, as in a butter lamp, and waited for his mother. Soon the mother came in carrying a palang, the cylindrical bamboo container for spirituous liquors. “Here son, you must be tired. Have some delicious ara I distilled especially for you,” said the mother as she poured out a cup of ara and held it out to her son.
The boy took the ara and pretended to drink it but actually poured it down his chin into his gho. Then he lit the wick in the butter for he knew that his mother had told the ghost to come into the house when she lit the butter lamp. The ghost, on seeing the light, rushed into the house, “Is he dead already? Now I can eat your meat and drink your hot blood to celebrate your son’s death!”
The poor foolish woman stood there stunned, only realizing now what she had done while the boy jumped onto the ghost and threw him into the boiling butter. The ghost wailed in pain as his body scalded and charred in the hot butter.
The remains of the ghost were buried in a deep hole that was dug at the cross roads, for it is believed that the power of the people who pass over the ghost will further suppress and subdue its powers. A black chorten was built over it.
As for the mother, who was now filled with remorse and shame, she cried and begged for mercy. The boy was truly a good man and he forgave her but he made her seek a tsawa lama and spend the rest of her days in prayer and meditation.
The boy then married the girl who had escaped with him from the demons and lived happily together for many years.