Indonesian Legend "The Parakeet King"

Cerita rakyat from Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam

The Parakeet King

 

 

 Once upon a time, there was a group of parakeets in the forest. The parakeets group was led by a king. One day, their peaceful life was threatened by a hunter who planned to catch and sell them in the market. The hunter put some glues around the parakeet’s nests to trap them. Some parakeets and the parakeet king were trapped on the glues that the hunter set up before. They had tried to release themselves from the trap, but their efforts resulted nothing. All of them cried for help, except their king. “Relax my friends! This glue is put by the hunter. He wants to catch us alive. If we die, he will not bring us with him. I suggest we all pretend to be dead when he comes to take us tomorrow. When the hunter releases us from this trap, he will checks whether we still alive or not. If he thinks we are dead, he will leave us here. Please wait for my counting to one hundred, and then we will fly together,” the parakeet king said calmly. All parakeets agreed with the idea, “Good idea. Tomorrow we will pretend to be dead to free ourselves from the hunter.”

The hunter came in the next morning, and released those parakeets one by one from the trap. Finding all of them had not breathed, the hunter was very upset. The parakeets were left unattended in the ground, and the hunter walked home. But suddenly, the hunter slipped and felt down. Surprised by the accident, the pretending parakeets flied and scattered to all directions without waiting for the king‘s counting. The hunter realized that the parakeets had deceived him. But then he saw one bird was still on the ground. It was the parakeet king who was still pretending to be dead. "Gotcha!" he seized the parakeet king. “I’ll kill you,” said the hunter in his anger. “Forgive me, sir! Please do not kill me! Please release me,” the parakeet king asked for mercy. But the hunter replied angrily, “I will not release you. Your friends and you have fooled me. But I’ll not kill you if you promise to entertain me,” the hunter said. “Okay, sir. I’ll chirp for you everyday,” said the parakeet king agreed.

The hunter then brought the parakeet king to his home. He put the parakeet in a cage. The parakeet king chirped melodiously everyday to please the hunter. “Wonderful voice, luckily I didn’t kill him,” said the hunter. The news about the beautiful voice of the parakeet king was heard by the king of Aceh. The king decided to invite the hunter to come to his palace. The king intended to buy the parakeet.

At first, the hunter refused to sell the parakeet. “Oh my Majesty, I do not intend to go up against your wish to have this bird, but it is hard for me to hand over him to you,” said the hunter. “I would like to buy him with high price,” replied the king. After thought the price offered by the king for a while, the hunter finally said, “Oh my Majesty, if you really intend to have the bird, I would gladly sell it to you.” The king was delighted to hear the hunter‘s answer, and quickly paid him the amount of the promised money.

At the palace, the parakeet king was put in a golden cage. He was given so many delicious foods, but he still felt imprisoned. He wished that he could back home to the forest and could fly freely with his parakeet fellow. His sorrow made him sick. He stopped singing at all. “Why does my beloved bird stop chirping? Is he sick?” the king asked the guard. “My Majesty, I do not know exactly the causes. I have provided him with many delicious foods and taken care of him carefully, but he still keeps silent,” replied the guard. The king was so sad hearing the guard‘s explanation.

Meanwhile, in his golden cage, the parakeet king began to think a way to escape. He came up with an idea. “I will pretend to be dead as I had ever done before,” he said to himself. In the next morning he began to do his plan and imagined could fly freely. The palace guard who saw the condition of the parakeet king came to the king to tell the bad news. The king was very sad hearing the news, because the parakeet‘s beautiful twitter was no longer be heard. To express his love for the parakeet king, the king had his guards dug a cemetery for the dead parakeet.

The burial ceremony would be held with the kingdom tradition in the next morning. The parakeet was then taken out from the golden cage. Everybody thought that he had been dead. Suddenly, the parakeet king flied fast and high on the sky. All people were amazed seeing him, because they thought that he had died. The parakeet king got his freedom again, and flied directly to the forest.