Princess Green of Old Deli

Years ago, Princess Green and her brothers, Mambang Jazid and Mambang Khayali, ruled Kingdom of Aru. They lived at a city called Old Deli. The three of them were known with their mysticism. Mambang Jazid could disappear and transformed into dragon. Princess Green emitted green light from her body and smelt very fragrant. And Mambang Khayali could transform into cannon. People believed they were half gods.

The beauty and the mysticism of Princess Green were famous to neighbor kingdoms. King of Aceh was attracted to her. He wanted to marry the princess. So he sent his trusted man to Old Deli to propose the princess.

When the man arrived to the castle, he spoke his aim. He said that his King, King of Aceh, would like to ask the princess to be his wife and the queen of Aceh Kingdom. Unfortunately the princess has no feeling for the King. She refused his propose. Sultan’s man went home with sad news for his King.

Meanwhile the King waited his man with anxious feeling. When he saw his man entered the gate, he called him and asked him about the princess’s answer. The man told the King that the princess said no to his propose. When the King heard it, he became angry. He felt her rejection was an insult for him. The king was never got any rejection for anything he wanted. People always did what he wanted. No body ever denied him. Now this princess rejected him, his ego couldn’t accept it.

King could not let this go. He walked around his room, thinking what he would do. Aru Kingdom had a wide region so he thought if he invaded the Aru Kingdom, he would get the princess and expand his kingdom. It was like picking up two golden in one way.

Then the king started his plan. He gathered up his armies and attacked Aru Kingdom. The armies sailed from Deli River. The soldiers from Aru Kingdom already heard about the attacking and they were prepared for a war with Aceh Kingdom.

First attack from Aceh Kingdom could not paralyzed Aru Kingdom. The soldiers fought very bravely. The Aceh soldiers tried to attack again. But they still couldn’t win this war. The Aru fort was build based on natural and build in defense. It was located between two valleys and flowed by the river on the side. And the fort was surrounded by bamboo trees and that made difficult to get through. It was a genius strategic military system that time for facing the enemies. The enemies had to cross the river first before they planned to attack, and then climbed the hill to get in to the fort. And when they got into the fort, they were already exhausted and got defeated easily.

King of Aceh had lost many of his soldiers and still could defeated Aru soldiers. He and his commanders used another ways. They prepared cannons to breakdown the fort. The cannons were filled with gold coins, and then the coins were fired to the fort. The Aru soldiers were excited to see gold coins flew through the air. They left their guard posts and fought each other for the coins. The surveillances became weak. The soldiers of Aceh saw this as an opportunity to attack the fort. So they did. After a while, they could enter the fort but the soldiers inside still made a defense. They still fought for the fort.

See the situation in critical, Mambang Khayali transformed into cannon. He and his soldiers still fought bravely. But Mambang Khayali was exhausted since he had to fire canisters all the time. Suddenly he couldn’t hold out anymore, the cannon became very hot and exploded in half. The head of the cannon was thrown far away. Some people said it was thrown to Aceh, some said to Karo land. I don’t know. All I heard it was far away.

Mambang Jazid knew they were going to the wall. He transformed to be a dragon and ran away with Princess Green from drain through the river. But the enemies found out about the escaping. They chased them and got the princess but the dragon got away.

The princess became a prisoner of King Aceh. She was taken to Aceh Kingdom but before she left her kingdom, she asked a condition to the King. She wanted to be kept in a glasses chest and the King could not touch her before they were at Aceh. The King agreed.

When they arrived at Aceh land, princess green asked another condition to the King. If he wanted to marry her, he must hold a ceremony for her. His people must brought eggs and rice to the beach. Princess Green got out from her chest and led the ceremony. Suddenly the sky looked dark and the wind became faster. The lightning was stroking. The rain felt very heavy. Then, something was moving from the sea. First it was just a dot and further became something big and performed a silhouette of a dragon. The sound of it was very loud. It looked angry. People were running away taking cover themselves. Then the tale of the dragon crashed the ship. Princess Green took cover in to the chest. Then, the dragon took the chest and left to the sea. The King of Aceh was angry because her bride left him.

This story happened based on true story. Aru was a big Kingdom. The region started from Rokan River and Tamiang. Sadly this Kingdom had no cultural inheritances. You can see the ruins of Aru Kingdom at Deli, East Sumatra. The fighting between Kingdom of Aru and Aceh was happened in 15^th century. Before this, Aceh and Aru already had fights couple times and that made Aru had to move its Capital City. The last city was Old Deli. In here, they built fort for holding the enemy’s aggressions. The fort was surrounding by bamboo trees. The contour of the land, which was between two valleys, was chosen to build natural defense mechanism. That was why the Aceh soldier had some trouble to attack Aru. Then they decided to do a new trick, bribing the commanders of Aru so they would leave their guard posts. And sadly this trick was successful. The defenses became weak and the enemies got through to the fort. Meanwhile the queen and her people rescued to forests, the soldiers inside the fort still made resistances. They fired canisters from big cannon that they bought from a Portuguese fugitive. The continuously of firing made the cannon hot and exploded in half. The Aru was defeated.

Anggi Nini was trying to get the Kingdom back. She and her people performed guerrilla war. But this thing didn’t work well. So Anggi Sini escaped. She sailed to Malaka to get help. The ship was built with dragon carved.

The Legend of Bidadari Lake (Angel Lake)

There was time when the lake became such a magical place. The purity of the water was never touched by human contamination. The lake was surrounded by shade trees and that made the air was very refreshing. That magical place was very attractive for angels. They usually came down to earth and bathed in the lake and felt the fresh water. The lake then became their playground. One day the angels were bathing in the lake. They were very comfort with the surrounding and didn’t realize that there were human eyes watching. These eyes were fascinated with the beauty of the angels. Those eyes were belonged to Awang Sukma. Awang Sukma was young man who lived near the lake. He liked to collect birds when the tangerine trees were flowering. He rubbed sap in laths of bamboos. Those laths were called pulut. The pulut were put in the branched of flowers. When a bird came to the flower, the wings would stick to the pulut and the bird couldn’t get off. And because what he did, Awang Sukma was known as Datu Pulut. Awang Sukma liked to play seruling when he was waiting the birds. His playing was well-known so he also was called Datu Suling.

That day, Awang Sukma was doing his day work. He was sitting under a tree waiting for the birds. The breezy of wind was so cozy and made him sleep. He woke up by surprise when he heard sounds of people. He looked for the sounds and he found beautiful girls were bathing in the lake. Awang Sukma stood still in his place, behind big tree. Then he saw shawls were hung on a branch of tree near him. “I’ve never seen such beautiful shawls.” Awang Sukma touched a shawl with his hand. “It’s very soft too. They must be angels that villagers talked about.” Awang Sukma took that shawl and put it under his shirt.

The girls finished their bath and prepared to leave the lake. They wore their clothes on and their slaves. Suddenly one of them screamed “I can’t find my shawl. Where is it?”

“Where were you put it?” asked the other girl.

“I put here, next to my cloth” the girl said. She looked panic.

“Ok. Don’t panic. We’ll look for it.” Her friends tried to comfort her.

Awing Sukma was still standing in silence behind the big tree watching the girls looking the shawl that he took.

“We’ve looked everywhere and we can’t find it. Maybe a dear took it” one of them said.

“We have to go. It’s getting dark.”

“No, don’t leave me here.” the girl started to cry.

“But we can’t stay. I’m sorry, my sister. May gods protect you tonight.” they hold their sister. The other girls then tied their shawls in their waist and hold the tips. Then slowly they started to fly. Awang Sukma was surprise to see them flying.
After everybody left, Awang Sukma went out from his hiding and walked to the girl that left behind. “Are you, ok?” he asked softly.

“No, I’m not ok. I’m alone here. I’m lost. I can’t go home” the girl was crying.

“Don’t worry. You can stay with me.” Awang Sukma said gently, gave his charm to her”I’m a nice person. I won’t do harm to you.”

The girl then stayed with Awang Sukma. Time passed by, Awang Sukma and the angel girl had married. For these years, Awang Sukma still didn’t tell her about the shawl. He still hid the shawl in the rice barn.

But you can’t hide a bad secret forever. It will show up and eat you someday.
And that day came for Awang Sukma was when a black chicken entered his barn and made it messy. The wife took broom to scare the chicken and got rid of it. Suddenly her eyes saw something shiny in the rice. She approached it and was very surprise when she saw something that very familiar for her long time ago.

Awang Sukma entered the barn and was shock when he saw his wife was standing there holding a shawl that he hid all this time.

“It was you?” his wife asked him. She could not believe that her own husband who took her shawl. “How could you do this?” she was very disappointed with Awang Sukma.
“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want you leave me.” Awang Sukma tried to give explanation and hoped his wife would forgive him.

“I have to go. I can’t stay here. I don’t belong here.” His wife tied the shawl to her waist and flew. She left Awang Sukma cried alone.

Since then Awang Sukma swore that he or his progeny would never keep black chicken. It was a bad luck for him. The lake that was used to bathe for angels was called Bidadari Lake or in English -Angel Lake. You can find the lake at Pematang Gadung Village, South Kalimantan.

You know, Arya Menak had the same story with Awang Sukma. They both married with beautiful angel and they also had the same destiny, being left alone when their wife found their shawl.

So let me give you advices about how to win a girl heart:

Rule number one: do not peep when they were taking a bath at the lake. That’s not polite. Just wait till they finish and then introduce your self.

Rule number two: do not steal her cloth, make her cry and then you show up as her knight, pretending like you can save her from her pain. That’s not a gentleman at all. Being her knight is good but never be the person who also gives that pain.

Rule number three: do not blame your mistake to a chicken. It’s already its nature to eat rice. You have to responsible for your own behavior. In this story, the girl left because she was disappointed to her husband for hiding her shawl not because black chicken was a sign for a bad luck.

Rule number four: if the start is good, the end will good. If the start is bad, the end will bad. You can not hide ‘dead fish forever’, sweetheart. The smell will go around someday.

Atu Belah (Split Stone)

This story is a sad story. People who lived in Penurun Village, Gayo believe this story ever happened. There’s a big stone in there and known as Atu Belah which means split stone. Atu Belah is famous because a tragedy that happened to a family who lived in there. This family was a simple and humble one. They had two children. The father was a farmer. But during the dry season, he went for hunting too. Sometime he went home with a dear or bunny. But if he couldn’t get any hunting , he brought grasshoppers.

One day, father went for hunting and he came late. His children were crying because they were hungry and had nothing to eat.” I’m hungry mother. My stomach's hurt" they cried. The tears flew from their innocent eyes. No mother could resist that. So she took the grasshoppers that she kept for her husband and cooked it for her children. I’m telling you, mother heart will tear every time she sees tears from their children eyes. So if you want to get something from your mother, you can use your tears. She will run for it. But I will not recommend that because you are not allowed to manipulate your mother. It’s a big sin.

Anyway, the father was home in the middle of the night. He looked upset because he came home with nothing on his hands. He went through the kitchen and sat in the chair”give me food." he ordered his wife.

"We don't have any food anymore. The children ate them all" the mother said. The father suddenly became angry. He welled to his sons” You... stupid sons. You ate all food and left nothing for me". His hand was going to hit the boys but the mother went into the middle and covered her sons. "Don’t hit him" she begged. Father got angrier because the mother was in his way so he hit her. The children were scream and cry. They were so afraid seeing their mother was beaten like that. It was awful. They begged their father not to do that. But he couldn't control his anger and kept hitting her.

When he got tired for hitting, he went to bed and slept. The mother’s body was brushes. She walked outside lumbered. Her feet were bleeding. She was in pain. Her children followed her. Three of them walked in cry. In front of the big stone, the mother stopped. She sat next to the stone and leaned on it. Her children were standing behind her and still cried silently. Then the mother said desperately “split stone, the time of our promise has come.”

Suddenly the stone was split in half. The mother was put herself in it and then the stone closed again slowly. The children were trying to follow her too but their little feet weren’t fast enough. The stone was closed when their hands reached it. It only left some of their mother’s hair. They took it and kept it as charm to remember her.

I don’t know what happened next because the story was end. But all I know for sure that they had to live alone in the hard world except if the father was sorry and changed. So he could be a good father. But no matter what he would do, nothing can bring the mother back and that will leave scar in his children heart forever. So no matter how hard your life is, don’t ever lose control when you’re angry. You don’t know what kind of scar you might leave.