How Lake Rara Was Formed

The beautiful Rara lake in Mugu disrict was once a valley. One day a hermit came to the village and begged the villagers for food but a foolish woman gave him instead a handful of ash.

The hermit turned back at once, going the way he had come, telling all the good people who had given him alms to go up the mountain. He went up the mountain himself and then with a blow of his hand, he broke his tumbler and the water in it ran down the slope. There was an unending flow of water untill the village was submerged and the whole valley became a lake.

Trapped in the mountains, the water continued to rise until the newly-formed lake itself wondered whether it should seek an outlet to the east and sweep away all the salt of Mugu or flood the rice paddies of Achham in the south.

Now, a holy man who lived in a mountain to the east of the lake knew what was going on. He said to himself that if the water came to the east, his own importance would be lost. So, he kicked at the hills in the south and made a passage for the water to flow down towards Achham. And that was how the lake came to be formed.

The Origin Of The Raute

Once upon a time there was a man named Nari in the mountains of Dhakaldara in Jumla. He made his living by traping and hunting birds and animals. But for a long time he found that the animals that fell into his trap were missing.
One day Nari laid a trap but he was himself surprised by a wild man. Although the wild man was momentarily undecided, he seized Nari and carried him off.
The wild man came to a large cave where his wife spent all her time grinding millet.
The wild man took the man on his back and, followed by his wife, he walked across a cliff. As they were going along a narrow path, Nari suddenly held the woman with his hand and gave a kick to the wild man, who fell down the cliff and was killed. Then the man called aloud for help and hearing him, people came and rescued him and the wild woman.
They brought the woman to the village and one of the men kept her as own wife. But she never spoke a word. All she would do was to smile and grind the millet. In course of time, she bore five sons, Even then she did not speak.
Then, one day some men took hold of her grinding stone and hid it. When she discovered her loss, she looked everywhere but failing to find the stone, she gave out a loud cry and died at once.
Such is the origin of the Raute, offspring of the wild woman. There are now several villages where this tribe is to be found. Even now they are called the men of the forest.

A Man With Two Goitres

There was once a farmer with a large goiter. One day while he was ploughing, he felt hot and tired. So, he let the oxen graze while he went to a corner of the field and lay down for a nap.
Now it so happened that two elfins who lived in the woods nearby came to the field to play. They found the farmer asleep, and when they saw his goitre, they took a fancy to it. They removed it, played with it for a while and took it home.
The elves were not however amused. They chided the elfins: "Don't bring the diease home. Take it back where you found it."
But as it was already late in the day, the elfins were allowed to keep their plaything for the night.
When the farmer awoke he was surprised to find himself without his ugly goitre. So, he went home much pleased with himself. Now, he had a neighbour who had an even larger goitre. When the man saw that the farmer had lost his goitre, he begged him to tell how he had managed to get rid of it.
The farmer related to his neighbour what had happened, and the next day he took him to the field and pointed out the place where he had laid down to sleep. The man did not loose much time but laid himself down and fell fast asleep.
Meanwhile, the elfins came to the field and finding the man asleep, they attached the goitre to his throat and went away. When the man awoke, to his great dismay, he found that he had gained another goitre.

How A Man Was Saved From The Devil

There was once a man at Kirtipur who discovered that his wife was going surreptitously to the foot of the hill where a big, old tree stood, around which the witches of the town gathered to pray to the Devil. At his wit's end, the man confided to a friend of his. The friend thought awhile and then enjoined upon him the need to pretend to know nothing of his wife's indiscretion and not to be unduly worried about it.

One night the wife prepared a and after throwing a few grains of rice over her husband, who pretended to be asleep, she made him powerless and tied a rope around his neck.

Dragging the poor husband like a goat, the wife and another woman arrived at the witches' tree down the hill. There, near the hour of midnight, the women began an elaborate but as they prepared to make the sacrifice, they suddenly heard a cock crow nearby, alarming them greatly and immediately putting an end to what they were doing. For, it was said that past the hour of midnight, with a new day beginning, the sacrifice was not to be made.

The two women left in a hurry, not even bothering to take with them the poor husband who lay helpless untill moments later, his friend came for him. Hours earlier, the friend had climbed the tree and in the nick of time, he had made the sound of a cock's crow. Thus, the man was saved from being sacrificed to the Devil.