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One day, Nang
Khai Sawn went to a field with her mother. Nang Khai Sawn's
mother wanted to plant some chili peppers, and Nang Khai Sawn wanted to plant some yellow cucumbers. After
planting these things in the ground, they went home to wait.
A month later, they
went back to check their crops. Nang Khai Sawn's mother's chilli peppers had not grown, but Nang Khai Sawn's vines had already grown, and
they already had cucumbers: some were yellow; some were still green. Nang Khai Sawn wanted to pick her
cucumbers, but when she entered the field, she found a turtle. That turtle had been
king before in Nang Khai Sawn's village. When the king died, he was reborn in his new
life as a turtle.
When Nang Khai Sawn began to pick her
cucumbers, the turtle looked up at her and said, "If you must pick your cucumbers, I
would like you to pick only the yellow cucumbers."
She looked up in
surprise and saw a turtle talking to her. Nang Khai Sawn wondered why the turtle could speak. She asked the
turtle, "Why do you say to pick only the yellow cucumbers?"
The turtle replied,
"Don't ask any more. Just believe me. Pick the yellow ones, and when you
arrive home, please cut one of them open."
Nang Khai Sawn did as she was told, and
when she arrived home, she tried to cut one of the cucumbers. She found it was very
hard, not soft like a cucumber. Nang Khai Sawn looked closely at the cucumbers and found they had turned
to gold.
In the morning, she
went back to the field and looked for the turtle, but he was not there. In the
corner of the field, was a small house. She ran over to the house and found the
turtle who was no longer a turtle. He had become a very handsome prince.
Outside the house, the turtle's shell was all that was left from the day before.
The prince spoke to
Nang Khai Sawn, "Remember me?
Before, you were my princess, my girl friend, but I died in the war before I could marry
you. You did as I told you yesterday, and so I was
able to return to life. Now I want to marry you. Will you be my wife?
Nang Khai Sawn thought and thought and
finally answered the turtle prince, "Yes. I will marry you."
When the people in
the village heard that Nang Khai
Sawn was marrying the turtle, they became very upset. "Why would our princess
marry a turtle?" they asked each other. They
wanted to go to war against the turtle and Nang Khai Sawn.
Of course, they could not win the war. Nang Khai Sawn and her husband
won. They became the king and the queen and controlled their country. The
country became rich, and there were no more wars, and Nang Khai Sawn and the king lived happily ever after. |
