1.The Old Man Who Wanted To Remain A Bachelor
Once there lived an old man who was sixty years old and whose wife died long time ago.His body was old in all parts.His hair was gray .His back bent.His skin was wrinkled.All his teeth broke,but his mind remained a bachelor.Particulary, he did not want to be called grandpa or old man.Instead,he was happy to be called elder or younger brother.
He never considered himself an old man. He neither adhered to the Buddhist precepts nor practiced any meditation at all. What he thought of was to make up himself, make friends with young men , go out wining and dining and go the theater .
One day the old man fell in love with a 16 year old girl who was a daughter of a poor family . He often bought food and clothes for the girl's parents to create friendliness. After that, he bought gold,diamonds and good clothes and asked a go between to ask the girl's parents for daughter's hand marriage. Due to poverty and to wanting the old man's valuable things, the girl's parents agreed, but asked the old man to wait for a year. The old man totally agreed.
From that day on, the old man went to home of the future parents-in -law everyday, bringing them food and serving them. He alway did everything instead of them despite the fact that he was too weak to do those thing as he wanted to show them that he was still a bachelor.
one day his future parents-in-law was making Ombok. He also tried to crush Ombok with the girl who was his future wife. After having made Ombok and upon seeing his future father-in-law climbing a coconut tree, the old man asked him to climb instead.
But how could a 60-year old man climb a coconut tree? The old man became exhausted only after he had to climbed a little .Then he lost his grip and fell down. Seeing that, the parents-in-law rushed to raise him, but the old man said he was all right and that the reason why he had fallen down was because the coconut tree was too slippery . He tried to climbed again . This time he climbed as high as about half of the coconut tree , but again he grew too weary to climb up any longer. He clung to the coconut tree tightly with his sampot(clothes) coming off, leaving him naked alone on the tree . The parents-in-law panicked and shouted for help. Hearing the shout for help, some neighbors came running , carrying a ladder to help put the old man down.
After dinner, the mother-in-law brought out Ombok to eat together. The old man was completely toothless. Seeing his father-in-law chewing Ombok, the old man took a handful of Ombok, put it in his mouth and start chewing unit his gum bled. However hard he tried to chew Ombok, the old man could never break and soften it,so he swallowed it, choking with his eyes turning as white as a fish caught in a fishing trap. He managed to make Ombok go down the throat so hard that he pissed himself wet.
One year passed. The wedding time arrived. The old man with the help of neighbors set up a pavilion for the wedding. His wedding was organized in accordance with the tradition and custom.
It was time for the newly-wed couple to go to bed. The elder arranging the marriage took the old man into the bride's room and asked them to sit close to each other and feed each other with Nom Y cake. At that time, the old man choked on a piece of cake again.With the help of the elder , the piece of Nom Y cake was removed from the inner throat. After the ritual was over the newly-wed couple were left alone in the room.
While seeing a piece of fresh meat, the toothless old wolf could not absorb the taste.
As for the girl, out of being shy and nervous, she tried to close her eyes to sleep and fell asleep so sound that no one could wake her up easily.
As for the old man, so strong was his sexual desire that he could not sleep. He kept on trying to pick up the twin fresh (Tonlop) fruits and eventually died on girl's chest with both hands tightly gripping both of the girl's fresh fruits .
At dawn, the girl woke up and tried to remove the old man's hands, but could not . She called him, but he he did not answer. Then she knew that the old man died. She shouted for her parents's help. Her parents and the neighbors came running and opened the door. they tried to remove the old man's body from the girl and then cremated him right away
what about the concepts of this story?
From: The collection Of Khmer Folk Tales.
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