The story of Pee-Bee-Yaw, the Rice Fairy, remains alive and vibrant—in songs, poems, and rituals—among the East Pwo and Sgaw Karen. They celebrate the Harvest Festival, now officially recognized as the Karen New Year, thanks to the efforts of Karen national leaders a century ago, who worked together to elevate an ancient thanksgiving tradition into a national celebration.

This is the Northerner foothill version.

The story goes as the following…

The Rice Fairy

Once upon a time there were two orphans, a brother and a sister. Their parents left them only four annas in money. They were so poor that if they got anything in the morning, they had to eat it up that morning; if they got anything in the evening, they had to eat it up that evening. They were never able to get enough in the morning to last until evening. Poor as they were, a famine arose in that country. Then those who had parents still living went to buy rice elsewhere. The little orphan sister said to her brother, who was older, “Brother, go and buy rice with our neighbors, please.”

But the brother said, “We have only four annas. What is the use of going to buy rice? We shall surely starve to death, and it is better so.”

But his sister said to him, “Not so, Brother. It is very difficult for human beings to come into existence on the earth. The mother must carry them in her womb for nine months and must nurse them, tend them, and feed them several decades of years, several hundreds of months. Life which has been brought into existence with so much trouble we ought not to cast lightly away. Though we might have died in the morning, we may live until evening, or though we might have died in the evening, we might live until morning. Go, Brother Dear.”

When the sister had spoken thus to him, the brother arose and went. Because he was an orphan, he was not permitted to go with the rest, in case he should bring a curse upon them, but had to follow at a distance, just within sight. The others bought rice in great quantities and went home bent over with the loads they carried on their backs. The orphan child with only four annas was able to buy only a handful and wrapped it up in a fold of his turban. He carried it easily. The people with families returned ahead of him. On the way, they saw an old woman bound about with a jungle creeper until only her head was showing. She called to them as they passed, one by one, “Cut me loose! Cut me loose!”

But they said to themselves, “If we cut her loose, perhaps she will eat up our rice for nothing.” So they all left her. Only the orphan remained. The old woman kept calling, more and more loudly, “Cut me loose! Cut me loose!”

The orphan thought to himself, “I shall surely die. It doesn’t matter if I die a little sooner. Let me die doing a little good.” So he cut the old woman loose. As soon as she was free from the creeper, she came out of the jungle, leaping and dancing lightly in circles, like a young girl. Then she came up into the roadway and said to the orphan boy, “Now go along quickly, Grandson, go along quickly. Grandmother is very hungry.” The orphan boy went on with a heavy heart, thinking about his little handful of rice.

His sister, looking down from the house, saw him coming with the old woman and wondered greatly. She said to herself, “When brother went to buy rice with only four annas, why has he brought home with him a stranger to help eat it up?” Her brother saw her frowning face and rushing ahead of the old woman anticipated his sister’s complaint.

“Little sister,” he said, “when our parents were living, they never refused to entertain strangers. This four annas is money which they left us. We must not violate their custom with their own property. Although we must surely die, let us die in honor.”

The sister, being reproved in this way, said nothing more but pounded out the handful of rice in the mortar. The old woman, while she was doing this, kept saying, “Hurry up, Granddaughter, hurry up! Grandmother is so hungry she is nearly famished.” When she had pounded out the rice until it was white and had sifted out the bran, the little orphan girl was about to wash it all before boiling it when the old woman said to her, “Do you eat so much? Of course you will starve. You should take only seven grains.”

The girl said, “I can cook a whole kettle full of rice, but I do not know how to cook just seven grains.” The old woman was angry. Her face grew red. She said, “Why is it you children will talk so much? Do as your elders tell you.’

The orphan girl, frightened, counted out the seven grains into the pot. Then the old woman bent her fingers over the pot, one by one. Every time she bent them, a handful of rice fell out. When there was enough rice, she stopped. Then the children knew that a fairy had come to help them in their poverty.

The next day, when the neighbors knew that the old woman who had been caught by the creeper was a fairy and had come to help the poor orphan children, they became angry. They said, “We saw her first. We ought to have her. Is it appropriate that those wretched orphans should be so favored?” The longer they thought about it, the more angry they became until they decided to seize the old woman by force. But when they arrived at the home of the orphans, the fairy would have nothing to do with them. “You saw me first, to be sure,” she said, “but you did not cut me loose as I asked you to do. I belong to this orphan who set me free.” Because she had supernatural powers, they did not dare do anything to her but sneaked back home. But they kept getting more and more angry.

Owing to the rice fairy, the four-annas-worth of rice lasted until harvest time. When the season came to cut the forest in order to plant the rice fields, the old woman said to the orphan boy, “Grandson, go and cut the forest over seven mountains.”
But he answered her, “Who is there who could cut down the forests over seven mountains single- handedly?”

The old woman spoke up sharply, “You children, how you do talk! Can’t you believe what the old folks tell you?” The boy was afraid of the old woman’s fiery face and said nothing more but went out quickly to see what he could do.

The old woman called him back. “Your axe is not good. Try mine,” she said.
When the boy had selected a suitable forest and was standing at the foot of a huge oil tree, about to tuck up his sarong for action, not wishing to lay his axe down on the grass, he started to strike it into the side of the tree with one hand. While his hand was still in the air, the great tree fell with a crash.

The boy was dazed. It was not until he had stared at the tree for several minutes that he came to himself and said, “Well, well! If the axe cuts like this, I shall have an easy task.” With that, he went about, simply holding out his axe this way and that way. Before it was sundown, before it was time to eat, he had cut down the forests over seven mountains so that they were bald.

When he went home to eat, the old woman asked him, “Do you like to cut with my axe?”
The boy, who had not yet recovered from his astonishment, simply said, “Granny, Granny, as for your axe, why yes, I like it.”

Meanwhile, he was wondering to himself how anyone could sow such a vast field or reap it. But he dared not say anything to the old woman. He remembered how angry she had been with him when he hesitated about cutting forests over seven hills.

When the time for planting the seed came, the rice fairy became greatly excited. She danced and waved her hands about. Rice seed came streaming from the ends of her fingers and from the edges of her skirts until it was a rain of seed. The seed planted itself. The rice sprouted and grew until it was taller than the boy. Each head bore a handful of grain. The boy saw the rice on his seven mountains growing ripe and wondered how it could be harvested. But he dared not ask the old woman any questions.

In the meantime, the neighbors saw the ripening grain rising higher than a man’s head over the field of seven mountains. They became more and more angry, until they could stand it no longer. They called together the people of many villages and tribes to steal the grain. When enough people had come, they went to the orphan’s fields on a pitch-dark night. Some reaped, some bound the stalks in bundles, some threshed the grain, some winnowed it, and some carried it away, so that before sunrise there was none left.

The next morning the orphan boy looked out upon his fields and saw nothing but stubble. He was so discouraged that he beat upon his breast. He followed the trail of those people, found seven sheaves they had dropped, gathered them up, and carried them back to the old woman, saying, “Grandmother, our rice has been stolen.”
She asked him, “Is there none left?”

“Only these seven sheaves,” he said.

Then the old woman told him to build seven granaries, each extending on all its four sides as far as the eye could reach. He dared not refuse and built the granaries wonderingly, as the old woman had told him to do. Acting upon her instructions, he did not put on a roof.

When the granaries were done, the old woman told him to put one of the sheaves which he had brought back into each granary. Then she danced on each sheaf, singing,
“Old Woman, Old Woman, bestir yourself,
Come scattering down, grains of rice,
From the mouth of the horse return,

Blasted kernels become sound,
From the hands of thieves return.
Old Woman, Old Woman, bestir yourself.
Old Woman, Old Woman, bestir yourself,

Come scattering down, grains of rice, From the elephant’s mouth return,
Husk of grain be fruit of grain,
From those who steal return.
Old Woman, Old Woman, bestir yourself.”
She danced and sang and waved her hands. When the rice which the people with families had stolen heard the command of its mistress, wonderful to tell, it came back in the sky and fell like rain into the granaries. When one granary was full, the old woman would go and dance in another, until the orphan’s stock had all returned and all the granaries were filled.

When the people saw that the rice they had stolen had all disappeared, they were very angry and said, “We were going to destroy this orphan, but it looks as if we have become his slaves. We have had to reap his grain for nothing. He did not even leave enough for our wages.” They became more and more angry and determined to steal the rice out of the granaries. But before sundown, the old woman told the boy to cut many clubs and make many ropes. Then she laid them down at the foot of each granary, saying, “Ropes, bind. Clubs, beat,” and returning to the house, went to sleep.

When the neighbors reached the granaries, the ropes fell upon them and bound each one to a tree. Then the clubs turned upon them and beat them to pieces like dried fish. They begged for mercy, but the clubs did not have ears to hear them. In the morning, when the orphan boy went out, he saw the woods full of people prostrated. When the people saw the boy, they begged him with tears to call off the clubs. The old woman made them solemnly swear that so long as the sun and the moon should exist, they would steal nothing from the boy. Then she called off the clubs and ropes.

Now that the orphan boy and his sister were provided for, the rice fairy said she must go back to tend her house in the sky; the chickens had been roosting on its roof. When she had gone, the orphan sold the rice and became very rich and powerful. He never saw the old rice fairy again.

This rice fairy is believed to transform into the (guardian) spirit of rice, watching over paddy field, deterring thefts from various forms, rats, critter, caterpillar, crickets, etc. Pee-Bee-Yor, known as spirit of rice, is ensuring fertility, prosperity, and abundance over the land. Nowadays, this bird is spread all over Indochina.

Common Name: Asian Fairy Bluebird
Scientific Name: Irena puella