Archives for January 2012

There once existed a very old gold trade route to the mountains and over the years many people had set off to journey on that path and not returned home. It so happened that at one time five hundred merchants set out to follow the path to the mountains on business.

Some days into their journey they came upon a forest and in that forest they choose to stay with the local women. They stayed in the woman’s house and fell asleep. When they were sleeping a ghost appeared and told the leader of the merchants that the women were not human and that they have captured many travellers of the past tied a rope around them and locked them in a building. Also that when new travellers arrive they capture them and then kill and eat the old ones they already have.

The leader awoke and told the rest of the merchants that they must leave the house, but two hundred and fifty said that they did not believe the leader and that they would stay. So in the night two hundred and fifty left and started for home leaving from the other side of the forest, but their path was blocked by a giant river. They are become very worried for their lives.

At that time there were three known parts of earth Junbudip, Suaarnadip and Tamrapurnidip. A large white horse that travelled between the lands came to the river and said that he was crossing the river to Junbudip and that if the people wanted to cross with him then they could ride on his back.

The people did this, but the woman of the forest followed and called from the bank for them to stay. Every man that turned his head fell into the water and drowned until only the leader was left. He returned home with only his life and lived to become king of Kathmandu.

All was not over however and some-time later a woman from far away arrived in the city with a child claiming that she was the Kings bride from the mountains. The King denied all knowledge of the woman and tied the woman to a rock.

To avenge the King’s action the ghost women came to the city and killed the king.
(This story has been kindly adapted from evening with Sareeta Sanu, Patan and an afternoon with Kesar Lall, Kathmandu. 2012).
This story relates to the legend which is illustrated in a picture kept and only displayed for two weeks a year in Durba Square, Temple, Kathmandu. The people of Kathmandu still bring rice water to the temple of the woman that brought her child from the mountains. The strong horse with a wide back appears in a similar story where the merchant travellers are told of impending doom not by a ghost, but by a pre-incarnation of the Lord Buddha that appears inside a burning oil lamp that will not extinguish. The three known realms of the earth Junbudip, Suaarnadip and Tamrapurnidip correspond to Nepal/Tibet/India, Malaysia and Thailand. The strong horse may relate to the symbol of Lung ta, a horse that bears special powers and appears through-out the region, from Buddhist prayer flags to the emblem of Mongolia.

Greetings again from the Fairy Tale Hunter and his fellow adventurers in the Guild of Fairy Tale Hunters, surfers gliding bye us, twitters tweeting, bloggers-a-blogging and artists scratching in the earth.

This last week has been full of fun and adventure. It started with creating the Dancing Yeti story at Life Vision Academy. You can find out what happened in the videos and special articles we made. If you want to find all the workshops then take a look in the teacher’s cupboard for more information.

I was whisked away to the musical side of life in my search for fairy tales by street performers who passed on their stories in rhythm and song. They also showed me their music sketch books, which the Guild of Fairy Tale Musicians are having fun using. Look out for the results in our sound cloud recordings coming your way next week.

As you can tell this week has also been the week for children. Festivals abound where everyone is celebrating the fruits of life.

Bookshop to Bookshop, Publisher to writer I have met and interviewed many. Hold your breath for the many tales to come. The artists are busy bees drawing pictures for our web-site.

At every corner and stepping stone, via towns of wood carving, door step offerings to the thousand gods and goddesses, I am showered in gifts of help in our adventure.

My thoughts turn artistic adventures of the past, reflections in water journeys, the paths of our earth and the fire that lights our way.

A week overflowing with artist’s creativity. Their invention and creativity to collect the new seeds and plant them for a next generation to watch them bloom, in every hidden garden or cascading terraced field. You will see the fruits of their work soon and discover that we can find Fairy Tales at every turn.

Every door is opened to us if we sit long enough to wait.

Third week of January 2012.

Greetings fairy tale hunters across of the world, as we in the guild continue to hunt down fairy tales of the yeti. I hope you are enjoying the articles and the video galleries. Mission control, back in the UK, tells me that their world map is filling with fairy tale hunters from every continent. So join the guild of fairy tale hunters by sending your ideas via the contact links.

This past week has been full of new discoveries and yeti clues. There are two new fairy tales, which I have discovered by interviewing people and you can find them in separate articles. Though for now I must tell you about by journey to the ruined castle. I started by rumble-tumble and twisty-twining my way to Bandipur, on the roof of a bus and clinging to the back of a jeep.

The eagles appear to be following me as I arrived in this peaceful sanctuary that is Bandipur. The candle lit cobbled street of this ancient Tibetan trading route greet me in a furry of children spinning cart wheels and singing songs. The clear morning air opens across a skyline of distant mountains as the Annapurna calls to me of its secrets. Here large bats sleep in giant caves and flower garlands flutter from the craggy temple peaks. A much needed haven that has taken my dreams back to West of China. I suppose if I was a fairy tale giant I may just be able to see over the peaks to that land of candle lit songs. Evenings full of the Arabian night’s tales from my meeting with Sasha the Rug Collector. He wove the night stars with adventure and romance from the Almond Blossom of Moroccan Esowera, crazy spinning back streets of Mexican Oaxaca, Macedonian citadels and feverish bartering over steaming pots of spicy masala pepper tea. Such place we must go to next for they are the warp and weft that is the fairy tale tapestry.

Onward and down into Dumri and on past the exposed bellies of overturned lorries to the jingle of the latest Hindi pop music to Besishahar, and then off the map and a kneeing busting hike up the thousands of rocky broken-teeth steps into the jungle of the snow leopards and the garden slopes of the Kings of old. This is where the kingdoms four hundred years ago took refuge from the malaria drenched valleys below, where brother fought with brother over the crown of the known mountain lands that became Nepal. And now all that stands are the ruins hidden in the jungle. Here I was greeted by Shamser and ceremonially welcomed to the drum beat, prayers and national anthem of Nepal at the Diamond Hill Academy of Gaunshsar-1.

Our days were filled with fun and laughter as the students in the school of the ancient capital of the Kings joined the hunt with their imaginative stories of the mountains through the windows of their school.

The roof of the world was ablaze at night with fiery lightning and the giant kilometre deep valley below boomed with angry thunder. Rained pounded on the metal roof as inside Shamser’s family and friends, plus a fellow adventurer from Seattle and I danced to traditional Nepalese songs by the beat of a long hand drum.

The day dawned golden and clear and I searched to complete my mission I had been given by the school children guiding my hunt for fairy tales. Leopard tracks took me to the Kings ruined temple, his long forgotten fortress and the silent remains of the village, its round houses now gripped by the roots of the forest.

If there were any yeti kept in the dungeons they had escaped back into those mountains a long time before I had arrived. The stories of the people were now only held in the sounds of the flutes or locked in the secrets of the bees.

Let us never be down hearted fairy tale hunters. Let us sing as we listen to the whispering wind and the creaking of the branches and let us share the dreams of the wild stormy nights as we tread lightly in wild footsteps. On we shall go, we will carry our journey into new realms, searching for new stories and uncovering new clues in our adventure.