Before the woman realized what was happening the stick came towards her and began to beat her up mercilessly.
Dangbo thik naki wenda dingbo thik naki wenda... there stood a village in a wide river valley. The valley bottom was covered with rich fields of yellow and golden barley ready for harvest. The hillsides were all dug and prepared for the buckwheat to be sown. Soon everybody would be busy sowing buckwheat except the poor boy who lived in the rundown old shack of a house... he was simply too poor to have kept enough seeds, he had eaten every grain in the house. Seeing the plight of this poor boy all the neighbors collected a handful of seeds for him and he gratefully sowed them in his little patch of land located on the hillside near a pine forest.
As soon as the seeds were sown a big family of sparrows came and, twittering and fluttering, they picked up every grain within a short while as the poor boy watched helplessly, paralyzed with shock. Slowly the initial shock gave way to intense anger and he began to chase the sparrows. He found the nest of the sparrows in a thorny bush, and inside there were six helpless chicks. Boiling with anger he was about to set them on fire when the sparrows begged him to spare their lives. The boy said, “What will I live on now that you have eaten my seeds? I cannot spare your lives.” The father sparrow gave him a phob and said, “With this phob you do not have to do a day’s work, whatever you want will come out of the phob.” So the boy took the phob and went home.
It was true, the phob produced rich and delicious meals for the poor boy every day, any time he asked it. As the boy no longer went to beg for scraps of food from his rich neighbor’s house, the mailiama or matriarch of that household became very suspicious. One day she went to see how the poor boy was feeding himself. As she watched him, he took a fairly worn out phob from the pouch of his gho and put it in front of him. Then he said, “Today I would like a very rich meal. I would like to have rice and meat. Use red rice and give me singchang to go along with the food.”
Before she could blink her eyes the food was in front of the boy. The bangchung was filled with steaming red rice. The rice grains were so even and smooth, she had never seen the like before. The dapa was filled with juicy pieces of pork, beef, tripe, and sausages, with large red and green chilies, and tender slices of radishes. The meal appeared as if it had just been cooked. The boy began to eat the food without a hint of surprise. He ate the meal with a great smacking of his lips and then held up the ornately decorated bamairuchung and poured himself a cup of the coolest and clearest singchang she had ever seen. The woman decided at once that she had to have the magical phob. She began to plan how she could possibly get it from him. She asked the poor boy to run an errand to the next valley, together with her son. As they had to cross numerous gorges and ravines to reach the next valley, they would be away for a few days. So the woman and her son went to the poor boy and in her sweetest voice, which was full of feigned concern, she told him that she would keep the phob with her for safe keeping while he was away.
After some days the boys returned from their trip and the woman gave the phob back to the poor boy. What she had actually done was to keep the magical phob for herself and give him another phob which was very like it. The poor boy went home and asked for a good meal but nothing came out of the phob even though he repeated the request several times. The poor boy became very angry and went straight to the sparrow and demanded to know why he had been cheated. This time the sparrow gave him a kid, saying, “Every time you wash and pat the kid you will get enough money to buy food for a long time.”
The poor boy washed and patted the kid as soon as he reached home and sure enough pieces of silver and gold coins fell from its body. Once again the woman became curious and went to find out how the poor boy was getting his money. When she saw the kid goat she wanted it. She once again succeeded in replacing the kid goat with a false one. When the false kid goat failed to produce any coins the poor boy headed straight to the sparrow and asked for something else. The sparrow said, “You did not look after the gifts very well and that’s how you lost them. Now I have nothing else but this stick, but it may be useful, so take it and never come back for I have repaid you adequately.”
The poor boy was now crestfallen and asked, “What can I do with a stick?”
“Place the stick on your altar revere it, and make three prostrations towards it and it will beat up anybody you ask it to.”
The boy went home with the stick and soon the mother of the rich boy was in his house asking him what the stick could be used for. By now the poor boy had guessed who had taken his phob and his kid so he said, “If you can wait for a while I can show you what it can do.”
The woman could barely contain her excitement as she watched the boy complete the prostrations to the stick. The boy then gave a command. Before the woman realized what was happening the stick came towards her and began to beat her up mercilessly. She ran out of the house but the stick chased her wherever she went. Stumbling and falling repeatedly, she eventually was able to stammer, “I sub... submit, I sur... rend... er, I have ta... ken the phob and the ki... kid. But I will return them to you im... im... mediately.”
“Ya, ya, in that case, stop stick!” ordered the boy.
The woman ran to her house and brought back the stolen goods and with folded hands begged the poor boy never to set the stick after her again. Now the poor boy had all the three gifts of the sparrow and he lived in happiness and prosperity without having to do a day’s worth of work.