Finally they saw an old woman sitting by herself in the middle of a forest and busily frying something in a pan.
Dangbo..o..o Dingbo..o..o.. there was an old couple who had a son. The son was a very lazy man. He was apathetic and passive towards everything. He had not done a day’s work in his entire life except to come into the house to eat his meals and sleep and then go out and lie in the sun day after day. The aging parents worried endlessly about their only son. “How will he fend for himself after we are gone?” they asked themselves, and shook their heads sadly.
One fine day they had a plan to get him interested in doing something for himself. They thought that perhaps every time the boy was rewarded for his deeds he would be encouraged to do more work.
One day the father hung a basket of meat from a branch in a tree not far from the house. Soon a bevy of ravens began to caw excitedly around the tree
The father pretended to be very curious and said, “Son, there seems to be something on the tree. Why don’t you go and have a look?”
But the boy was not at all interested and did not go willingly. He shuffled along as if his feet weighed heavily and walking was an annoyance. When he reached the tree and saw the basket of meat hanging on a branch of the tree, he at once cut the rope and carried home the meat. The parents, of course, pretended to be very happy and grateful to him. Another time the father hid a roll of butter in the leaves and when the cat began to scratch up the leaves the boy went and found the roll of butter which the parents once again enthusiastically received. The parents kept on hiding things and praising the son when he brought home whatever he happened to find. Now the boy began to become ambitious and confident of himself. He wanted to do something great in his life.
When the son was twenty-five years old he asked his parents to give him a pipe that measured nine du or hand spans and a sword that was as large as eighteen arm spans. The son then set out, with the pipe in his mouth and armed with the sword, and began to clean up the forests on the hills as if the energy stored in his body for all these years had to come out in some form. The father begged him to go and find something more worthwhile to do. With the pipe sticking out in front of him and the sword, which he carried upright, towering far above his head he left his parents’ home and went in search of people who would match his own strength and ambition. He walked on for many days until he saw a man who was busy breaking boulders from a hill. The pipe-smoking hero, as he was now called, just watched him. The boulder-breaking man turned to him and said “I am Bjah Phomi, the boulder-breaking hero, who are you?”
“I am Gangze Joy Guma, I smoke this nine-du pipe.”
They at once became friends and decided to travel together. Soon they saw a man standing in the middle of a river and stopping the river’s flow with the incredibly huge calves of his legs. The pipe-smoker and the boulder-breaker asked him who he was and he said:
“I am Bjimtha Chu Chemi, the hero who stops the river with his calves.”
He became the third friend and they traveled all over the place performing their preposterous exploits until one day the pipe-smoker ran out of tobacco. They then went in search of tobacco everywhere. Finally they saw an old woman sitting by herself in the middle of a forest and busily frying something in a big frying pan. First Bjah Phomi went to her and asked her if she could tell him where they could find some tobacco. Without even taking the time to look up at the hero she just pulled him down with one hand as she continued to fry whatever she was frying and stuck him under her left knee. She was frying human nails. Then Bjimtha Chu Chemi ran up to her but she pulled him down too, with her right hand, and stuck him under her right knee. Then Gangze Joy Guma went up to the woman, turned over the frying pan, and took the largest burning log from the fire. He held her down by putting his left hand on the nape of her neck and scorched her to death with the burning log of wood. He released his friends. This demonstration of superior strength was sufficient to win the unfailing loyalty and allegiance of the other heroes. Gangze Joy Guma was the undisputed champion, the strongest and the bravest of them all.
Nearby was the splendid house of the dead witch. They decided to live in the house. One day when they opened the innermost door of the house they found a beautiful girl whom the witch had locked up. Gangze Joy Guma married her. Now the strongest hero was served by two other heroes, and they lived together very happily and their lives continued to be one fantastic saga of adventure after adventure.