Alistair

**THE CHICKENS FROM KAMAL (a tale from Madura)** This story is set on the coast of Madura, on board the pirate's ship and in a poor fisherman's village, which is on Madura. The main characters in this story are the dwarf, the cock, the hen, the pirates and the King of Majapahit is mentioned a bit. This is a story about a dwarf, who is on a rice ship when it is attacked by a group of cruel pirates, the pirates then throw all the sailors of the ship overboard, but the dwarf, who has with him a cock and a hen, hides in the corner below decks. The pirates eventually discover him, and he tells them that he was on his way to entertain the King of Majapahit, so pirates decide not to kill him. They lock up the dwarf, but this means the cock stops crowing at sunrise and the hen stops laying eggs. The pirates realise what is happening and let him go, so the cock crows and the hen lays eggs, for a while after this everything went well and all was happy. The people on this island decided they would pull feather's out of the cock's tail, and throw stones at the hen, the dwarf didn't like this. So, one night, he tried to escape in a rowing boat to Java with his animals, but he got so tired, he fell asleep in the boat, and then the tide pulled him back in to the beach. In the morning, they were very angry at finding he had tried to escape, so they wanted to kill him. One pirate came up with the idea to tie them up and let them starve. The dwarf prayed to his God, Vishnu about this, and then a great storm appeared and killed all the pirates, the dwarf and his animals were thrown overboard, but didn't die. The dwarf had a dream about Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, and she gave him one wish. He washed up on a beach of a poor fishing village, where they gathered round him, he told them about his skilled animals, but the headman wanted the animals to do it now. The dwarf simply said they would have to wait until tomorrow, but all the vilagers got angry, and started attacking them and threatened to throw them out to sea. The dwarf got angry, and wished they would all turn into cocks and hens, and they did. The dwarf and forgotten about his wish. A ship then passed by and picked them to take them to Java and to the King of Majapahit. The dwarf lived happily there forever, and the chickens in Kamal are said to be the noisiest and strongest in the world. There is no moral to the story.