The Talking Flute and the King’s Secret

There once was a kingdom and it was ruled by a king with beautiful long hair.

Every day he would command that a woman of the land would come to his palace and comb his hair. However every time a woman came she was never to be seen again.

One day a woman arrived at the palace to comb his hair, but when she started to comb his hair she discovered that the King had horns under his hair. After she finished combing his hair the king said that he would have to kill her because she knew his secret that he had horns. She pleaded with the King not to kill her.

The King said that he would spare her life, but only if she stayed in the palace and told him a story that would never end. So very day she combed his hair and told him a story. The story she told was very cunning as it always ended back at the beginning. So the story began and finished at the watering well and thus repeated and repeated for many days. When the King realised that the story would repeat again and again for ever he said the she could leave the palace, but that she must come back every day and comb his hair. He still commanded that she should tell know one his secret under sentence of death.

The woman kept the secret for a long time until she could bare it no longer and one day when she was in the country she came upon a hole in the earth. She cupped her hands and spoke the secret of the King’s horns into the whole. Having done so, she returned home very relieved and calm.
The years passed and in the hole a piece of bamboo grew. A passing man cut the piece of wood and made it into a flute, however when he played the flute it only said that the king had horns! He tried to play the flute again, but the same happened. Even when he tried three times it would only speak of the king’s secret.

Over time everyone got to hear the flute telling the secret. Eventually the King discovered the rumour and he summoned the woman to his palace asked her how everyone knew his secret. The woman said that she had only spoken to a hole in the ground, so the king asked the people how they knew and the people said that they had been told the story by a flute.

And that is all that can be remembered of the story today….. ( from an evening with Sareeta of Patan, 2012)
The story ends in this way….

It I said that a lama, hearing the tale came to the city and performed a dance dressed in a mask in front of the palace. On hearing the dance the King went to watch wear upon the lama killed the horned King with an arrow concealed in his sleeve.

This story was retold by Kesar Lall, when meeting him one afternoon in Kathmandu (2012). He was told the story by a Sherpa in the mountains and he included it in his book “The Origin of Alcohol and Other Stories” (1992).