Cindelaras || East Java Folklore

Once there was a kingdom named Jenggala. Jenggala kingdom was ruled by a king named Raden Putra. Raden Putra lived with his beautiful wife, the queen of the kingdom and also with his concubine. The king’s concubine was so jealous of the life of the queen. All of her time was spent by thinking on how to get rid of the queen and become the only queen in the kingdom.

One day, the desire of being a queen filled the concubine’s heart and blinded her. She was coming to the kingdom physician to set a plan to get rid of the queen. With all the wealth promised by the concubine, the physician agreed to join her. As the agreement made, the queen walked back to her room with a self-satisfied smirk on her face.

Cindelaras via https://i.ytimg.com

The next day, the concubine was lying unmoved in her bed screaming for help. Of course it was her trick to fool all people in the kingdom. The king that heard the scream rushed to the concubine’s room. As he checked the state of his second wife, he told his people to summon the kingdom physician.

The physician had done checking the condition of the concubine when the queen arrived in the room. The king worriedly asked the physician what triggered the illness of the concubine. There was a short pause before the physician started to say that the concubine was poisoned. He found that the drink the concubine drank before she slept was intentionally put with dangerous substance by someone. The physician told that it was such a lucky that the king wasn’t too late to call him.

There was anger in the king’s face to know that there was someone trying to poison his wife. The king then interrogated all present that time to find who had brought the drink to the concubine out. All the questions given, then, led to a conclusion that it was the queen who brought the drink that she made by herself. The queen denied to be said that she put the poison into the drink. But the king was blinded by everything that seemed to happen so fast and bad that night. The king, then, asked his viceroy to take the queen to the forest and told him if it was needed he could kill the queen.

The viceroy then took the queen to the forest. The queen couldn’t help not to cry and beg him not to kill her. But he didn’t say a word to the queen’s beg. After few hours of travelling, they finally arrived in the middle of the forest. The forest was so thick that it seemed a bit dark even in the middle of the day. The viceroy took his sword out of its scabbard. The queen screamed as she saw it. She thought that it was the end of her life. But how baffled she was when he saw the viceroy used the sword to cut the bushes and small trees. With those, he build small hut that the queen could use to sleep and stay during the day.

When the queen asked why the viceroy didn’t do what the king ordered him to do, he answered that he didn’t believe what had been accused to her. Besides, the viceroy would never kill a woman that was pregnant. The queen was pregnant the time she was taken to the forest. After explain that, the viceroy hunted for a small rabbit. As he killed the rabbit, he simmered his sword with the rabbit’s blood. Before he travelled back to the kingdom, the viceroy told the queen that she shouldn’t be worried the king would look for her because he would tell the king that he had killed the queen by showing his blood-covered sword.

Few weeks later, the queen gave birth to a baby boy. She named the baby Cindelaras. Time flew so fast. The baby grew up into a healthy handsome boy. He liked to play around the forest and befriend with many animals in the forest.

One day, while he was playing, an eagle was flying above him and dropped an egg. Cindelaras was curious of the egg. He decided to keep the egg until it hatched to know what animal he would see. After three weeks, the egg hatched to a small chick. Cindelaras was so happy that he began to raise the chick until it grow up into a beautiful roaster. His mother was also happy to see how happy his son was to have a friend that he could keep inside the house.

One morning, the rooster crowed like it usually did every morning, but this morning, instead of producing sound of a rooster, it screamed “Kukuruyuuk!!! Cindelaras, his home inside the forest in the hut, the roof is from the leaf of coconut, and his father is the king Raden Putra, the fact that will always unshut.

Cindelaras was fascinated of what he heard. He, then, told his mother about it. His mother told the history of what happened to her in the past. After listening her mother revealing the truth, Cindelaras decided to go to the place to meet Raden Putra that her mother told him to be his father.

Next day, Cindelaras began his journey. He passed a village where there were a battle called “nyabung”, where people would bring their roosters and put them into a fight. When Cindelaras passed the crowd, many people were amazed by the beauty of his roosters. They asked Cindelaras to join the nyabung battle. Apparently, Cindelaras’ rooster could easily defeat all roosters in the villages.

Since then, every time Cindelaras passed a village, he would be asked to join “nyabung” battle. And every time he took part in the competition, he would always come out as a winner. The word of his popularity spread so fast to the entire villages and kingdom.

Cindelaras and his rooster arrive at the palace via https://untukmublog.files.wordpress.com

The king who heard that there was a boy with his beautiful strong rooster asked his people to take Cindelaras to him. As Cindelaras arrived in front of the king, he bowed and greeted the king. The king was amazed on Cindelaras’ manner and also his appearance. The king didn’t expect that he would see a very good-looking boy.

The king told Cindelaras that he would like to ask him to battle their roosters. Before they began the battle, Cindelaras asked for one condition that if he lost, the king could behead his head but if he win, he could have all the wealth and kingdom. The king agreed on the offered condition.

The battle began. The roosters fought each other with their claws and beaks. They hit each other so hard. The roosters were bleeding so badly. Finally, after a long fight, the Cindelaras’ rooster could take down the king’s.

The king was stunned to see what happened and to think what would happened. He then asked Cindelaras “Who are you?”. But, before Cindelaras could open his mouth to answer the king’s question, the rooster crowed ““Kukuruyuuk!!! Cindelaras, his home’s inside the forest in the hut, the roof is from the leaf of coconut, and his father is the king Raden Putra, the fact that will always unshut..”

The king was shocked with what the rooster said. He called his viceroy to ask what was happening. The viceroy then told what happened to the queen and also told his suspicion on the concubine and the physician. The king was gone for seconds while listening to what the viceroy words. There were tears dripping from his eyes. He walked toward Cindelaras and hugged him. He told the viceroy to take the queen home and put the concubine and physician into the kingdom jail.

The next day, the king, the queen and Cindelaras gathered as one in the palace. And for once again, there was happiness in both king and queen’s face. They lived happily ever after.