The Story of Cinde Laras

THE STORY OF CINDE LARAS

            This story had been handed down from generation to generation among the Javanese people in Indonesia for hundred of years or maybe a thousand  years.   The setting is Kediri, east Java in the 11^th century.  I heard this story from my mother when I was a kid.  Now I have told this story to my three daughters.  This is the story.

            Long time ago in the island of Java there was a kingdom of Kediri.  The king was Raden Putra.  He was a rich and powerful king.  He liked cock fighting.  One of his wives told him that the queen had put poison in his food.  The king was very angry.  Without thinking deeply and without checking this information,    he immediately ordered his soldiers to bring the queen to a wood and kill her.  Soon the soldiers took her to the wood.  But when they were there the soldiers took a pity on her.  They did not want to kill her because she was a kind and wise queen and at that time she was pregnant.  So they built a house and let the queen live there.  Then they brought back to palace a deer’s heart to show the king that they had killed her.

            Several months later the queen gave birth to a baby boy.  He was a healthy and handsome boy.  His name was Cinde Laras.  Then he grew up to be a strong and smart boy.  He liked to go to the wood.  One day he found an egg.  He brought it home and then  when it hatched it became a cock.  Like his father,  Cinde Laras like cock fighting.  He often went to neighboring villages to play cock fighting.  His cock was a strong cock so it won all fight.  He became famous.  Everybody in the whole kingdom knew him and his cock.

            Finally the news of Cinde Laras and his cock reached the king.  He invited Cinde Laras to palace for a cock fight.  So Cinde Laras came to the palace.  In a fight his cock could easily beat the king’s cock.  Everybody was surprised.  They were even more surprised when Cinde Laras’ cock crowed.  It was a strange crow.

‘Cockledodo,  I am the cock of Cinde Laras, who lived in the wood, the son of Raden Putra’.

            The king was very surprised.  He questioned Cinde Laras immediately.  Cinde Laras told him that he was the son of the queen who now lived in the wood.  After that the king went to see the queen in the wood.  She told him that she was a victim of palace politics.

            The King regretted his unwise decision.  Then he brought them back to palace and he  punished to his evil wife.  Later on Cinde Laras would replace him as the king of Kediri.