Phra Rot Meri (พระรถเมรี)

Thai name for a Southeast Asian folktale based on an apocryphal jataka saga, which relates the story of one of the previous lives of the Buddha, in which Phra Rothasen (พระรถเสน), the son of one of twelve sisters abandoned by their parents and adopted by an ogress disguised as a beautiful lady, is the bodhisattva. It relates the love story between Phra Rothasen and Meri (เมรี), the adopted daughter of the ogress. Despite their wealth, a rich merchant and his beautiful wife were without children. One day, after making an offering of twelve hands of bananas to a tree spirit, the wife became pregnant and conceived a girl, in spite of her husband's explicit hope for a boy. His wife, however, became pregnant another 11 times, once for each hands of bananas, yet all newborns were girls. Then, his fortune turned and the merchant over time became a poor man. Since he couldn't feed his 12 girls any longer, he planned to abandon his daughters in the forest. When his youngest daughter found out about the plan, she had left marks on the path, enabling them to find their way back home. However, on a second attempt their father's plan succeeded and the girls were not able to find their way back home, instead got lost deep in the forest. They caught some fish from a lake to satiate their hunger and playfully poked out the eyes of their fish with sharp twigs, except for the youngest one who poked out only one eye. After eating, they arrived at the kingdom of an ogress, who transformed herself into a pretty woman and adopted them. She cared for them as her own and they grew up into beautiful young women. One day, after finding out the true nature of their stepmother, they fled from the man-eating ogress. When they arrived at a river, they halted to fresh up and play in the water, and were noticed by a local king, who fell in love with them and married the twelve maidens. They soon after all became pregnant. When the ogress found out about this, she transformed herself in a beautiful young lady, exceeding the splendor of even the twelve sisters and set out to meet the king, who was immediately spellbound by her looks and swiftly married her, promoting her to the rank of first queen. Jealous of the king's favoritism, the sisters were not kind to the new queen, so she pretend to be sick and told the king that the cause of her disease was the ill-treatment of the twelve sisters, and the only cure would be a medicine distilled from the eyes of the sisters. Infatuated, he ordered the eyes of eleven his wives gouged out, but the youngest one had -like the fish before- only one eye removed. After this, the girls were locked away in a deep cave without food, and from where no escape was possible. Later, the pregnant girls successively all gave birth, but all babies died, and since they were being starved, each one chopped her baby's body into twelve pieces to share with the other sisters to eat. But, when the youngest sister finally gave birth to a beautiful boy, the baby lived and was named Rothasen, though she kept it a secret to her sisters. As the boy grew, he found a secret way out of the deep cave, and with prize money from winning cockfights (fig.), he was able to bring the sisters food on a regular basis. As years went by, Rothasen became a handsome young man, and when the king heard of him, he was invited to the palace to play games of dice. When the queen saw Rothasen, she again faked an illness and Rothasen was sent out to fetch a fruit for her cure, from her own adopted daughter, also an ogress in disguise and named Meri, who her mother in a letter instructed to devour Rothasen. On his way over, Rothasen was given a flying horse by a reusi, who also changed the queen's letter to Meri, instructing her to marry Rothasen. After their wedding, Rothasen found the medicine that contained the eyes of his mother and aunts, stole it and returned them by putting them back in their place with a special magic ointment. Rothasen then killed the evil queen with a magic club and the sisters were restored to their former positions within the palace. Afterward, Rothasen hastily returned to Meri, though he arrived late as she had meanwhile died of sorrow. Full of sadness he also dropped dead while holding his wife in his arms. Finally, their spirits flew to their next chaht where they would be together again. Also known as Nang Sip Song (นางสิบสอง), i.e. ‘Twelve Ladies’, yet in English usually referred to as the Twelve Sisters. See also POSTAGE STAMP. 回