น่อผะโต๊ะ  / Naw Pha Do

Once upon a time, there was a young woman, named Nohpato, who had no parents. Each year, she made a living by relying on planting rice and other crops on her rotational farm. One day, the supernatural power recognized her good deeds. One bird was sent to fly over Nohpato, saying "It is fun to rain. Or do you want a drought?" The bird kept flying over her head and sang these verses for three days. On the third day, Nohphato answered, "It is fun when it rains because it makes the rice fields green. But if it is sunny, I would like weeds in the rotational farm to be dead." Hearing her answer, the bird flew away.

Following this incident was the period when rice ripened and became yellow. One elderly man came to visit her and said, "Do you do all the farm work by yourself throughout the year?" She answered, "Yes, I've been doing this for many years. I think it's fun." Then the old man told her, "Young girl, let me tell you something. When you finish threshing rice grain, you must build four  granaries." The young woman asked, "Will I have enough threshed grain to store in all four granaries?" He replied, "You should build them first, in case you harvest a lot of rice so you have a place to store it." After having said that, the old man left, leaving Nohpato in puzzlement, wondering how she would have enough rice to fill in so many granaries. When she returned home, Nohpato started to build 4 granaries the way the old man had instructed her. Each granary was five cubits wide and five cubits long. When finished, Nohpato walked to the rice field and carried home the threshed rice grain. She, then, poured it into one of the four granaries, complaining to herself that she had only little threshed rice grain, which would never fill all the four granaries. After carrying rice grain for several trips, one granary appeared to be filled with rice grain. Nohpato was surprised to see that. However, she had to continue carrying sticky rice grain to another granary, but she could harvest very little so she thought it would never fill the granary. After making several trips carrying sticky rice grain to the granary, it appeared once again that the granary was filled with sticky rice. She felt so surprised and amazed because what the old man had told her became true. 

Later that night, the old man came to her house and filled the other two empty granaries, as well as the empty space under her house, with silver and gold. When Nohpato woke up in the morning, she cooked and had breakfast before walking down the stairs of her house. With a surprise, she found a lot of silver and gold in two of the four granaries. She covered it thoroughly so on one would see it. 

The town where Nohpato lived was governed by one king, and the king had one son. One day, the king's son walked past her house and noticed the four granaries. He was wondering why there were so many of them for a small household. He walked into her house and discovered a lot of silver and gold inside the granaries and under the house. When he returned home, he talked to no one, except lying in bed with a blanket covering his body. At dinner, his parents called for him to have dinner, but he refused to eat. His parents were worried about him so they went to consult with a fortune teller, who told them that the only way to solve this was to organize an offering ritual to ancestral spirits. The wife argued they had already done that, and there was only one pig left, it was too skinny to be eaten. The son, with his body covered with the blanket, overheard the conversation between his parents, so he walked up to them asking them what was going on. The wife said to her husband, "See, mentioning about that pig made him get up." The son said, "What pig? The one downstair? No, I'm not going to eat it. I'm all right now." His parents asked, "Why are you not eating food?" The son told his parents he had something to tell them. He said, "We are the king family, but what we have cannot be compared to Nohpato’s possessions." The parents did not believe him. He replied, "If you don't believe me, go look for yourself." 

The king then hurriedly walked to Nohpato's house. There, he opened the granaries and found they were filled with rice grain, while the other two were filled with silver and gold. He was angry thinking to himself that he was a king but his possessions were nothing when compared to Nohpato's. He then asked her how she had obtained all these fortunes, working alone in a rotational farm, and why she possessed so much silver and gold. Nohpato answered, "I don't know. I just do what I normally do. Work. Eat. Thresh rice grain and store it here." 

After having the conversation with Nohpato, the king talked to his wife, "Our son must get married to this woman. They are compatible with each other. None of the other women are suitable for him." Following this, the king made his son and Nohpato marry each other, and enthroned his son the king. After the son had become the king, he made an announcement to the town that the villagers had to stop doing the rotational farming because his oxen, cows, buffaloes, and other livestock did not have enough food to eat. When the town governor heard the announcement, he argued that it was impossible to follow the king's demand. Although the people who lived in that town included both the rich and the poor, they would not have food to eat or survive. As a result, the king and the town people had a meeting in order to find a solution to this conflict. After two days of meetings, they still couldn't reach an agreement. By the third day, they had yet to find a solution. This went on until the sixth day when one of the town people proposed that, "Tomorrow, we will pack our food here, but you have to drink water immersed with silver and gold." The new king agreed. That evening, the villagers started to prepare mhaytopi  to bring it to the next meeting.

On the following day, the seventh day  of the ongoing meeting, the new king and the town people continued their discussions, striving to find the solution. After many hours passed, they became hungry so the town people ate the rice they had prepared, while the king drank water immersed with silver and gold. After having several drinks, he still did not feel full. In the afternoon, the meeting continued with the town people discussing a number of topics. Meanwhile, the king grew hungrier and hungrier, so he asked  for the meeting to be stopped  so he could go home to eat food. The town people disagreed and did not let the king leave the meeting hall. Instead, they told him to drink water immersed with silver and gold. The king started to be curious and asked the town people about the food they had eaten because they seemed to be full all the time, never seemed to be hungry. The people explained to him that they ate mhaytopi, which was a kind of rice they planted in their rotational farms. The king asked for some samples of mhaytopi and ate it. Immediately after eating mhaytopi, the king started to feel refreshed and energized. The town people took this opportunity to explain to him, "Can you see, king? We are farmers. We have to do farming. Money cannot be eaten or substitute food." Hearing that, the king, who had been sitting above the town people, came down from his seat and sat on the ground with the town people, and asked one of the town people to sit on his high seat. Then, Nohpato said to her husband, the new king, "You see? Farmers who do rotational farming are the most powerful. Before we got married, I used to be a farmer and had done rotational farming before. I worked in the field to get rid of weeds. Whenever the town governor did not allow us to work on the farm, we did it in secret. Sometimes we get a lot of rice, and other times we get a little. The supernatural power even understands us and has sympathy for us." Hearing this, the new king completely understood the feeling of his wife and the town people. He told them to continue their rotational farming in every generation, the same way their ancestors had done.