Indonesian Origin Legends

Prince Bandung Bondowoso kills the giant king Prabu Boko and asks to marry his daughter, Roro Jonggrang. She sets two tasks: a well, then a thousand temples in a single night. He summons spirits and reaches 999. Before dawn she and her maids light fires and pound rice, the roosters crow, and the spirits flee. Furious, he curses her to stone. She becomes the thousandth statue, said to be the Durga figure in Prambanan's Shiva temple.

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Dayang Sumbi realises the young man who wants to marry her is her own son, Sangkuriang. She asks him to dam the Citarum River into a lake and build a boat in one night. With spirit helpers he almost finishes, so she spreads a white cloth in the east to fake sunrise and pounds rice. The spirits flee. In rage he kicks the boat over and it becomes the mountain Tangkuban Parahu ("upturned boat"); the drained lake becomes the Bandung basin.

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Princess Roro Anteng is courted by the giant Kyai Bima, whom she does not want to marry. She sets him one night's work: dig a great crater with a coconut shell. He is nearly done when she and the village women pound rice, the roosters crow, and Bima, thinking dawn has come, flings the shell away in a rage. It lands upside down and becomes Mount Batok; the crater is Bromo. Roro Anteng then marries Joko Seger, and together they found the Tengger people. Childless, Joko Seger vows to give a son to the mountain if they are blessed, and the youngest, Kusuma, is the one promised.

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Manik Angkeran, son of the priest Sidi Mantra, keeps losing at cockfights. To pay his debts his father rings a sacred bell on Gunung Agung and the dragon Naga Besukih gives him treasure. Manik wastes it, steals the bell, calls the dragon himself and cuts off the jewel on its tail. The dragon burns him to ash. Sidi Mantra restores the dragon's tail and the dragon brings Manik back to life. Knowing they can't live together, the father draws a line with his staff and the sea splits Java from Bali.

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Mayadenawa, a proud king of Bedahulu, is hunted by the army of the god Indra. He poisons a spring and the soldiers fall sick. Indra strikes the ground and brings up a holy spring that heals them: Tirta Empul. Mayadenawa flees walking on the sides of his feet to hide his tracks, which gives Tampaksiring its name ("tilted foot").

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Calon Arang, a widow-witch of Girah in the Kediri kingdom, is furious that no one will marry her daughter Ratna Manggali, and sends flood and plague on the land. King Airlangga's army fails, so the sage Mpu Bharadah sends his disciple Mpu Bahula to marry the daughter. Bahula steals the witch's magic scroll, and without it she is defeated. In Bali she lives on as Rangda, the witch of the Barong dance.

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A ragged boy, Baru Klinting, comes to a proud village and is mocked and turned away. Only an old widow, Nyai Latung, shows him kindness. He sets a challenge: pull out a stick he has pushed into the ground. No one can, but when he pulls it out himself, water pours from the hole and drowns the village. The flood becomes the lake Rawa Pening, and Nyai Latung survives, floating on her rice mortar (lesung).

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A fisherman named Toba catches a golden fish that turns into a beautiful woman. She marries him on one condition: he must never mention where she came from. Years later, angry with their son Samosir, he calls the boy "the child of a fish". Mother and son vanish, water bursts from the ground, and the flood becomes Lake Toba, with Samosir Island in the middle.

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Malin Kundang leaves his poor mother to seek his fortune at sea and comes home rich and married. Ashamed of her, he denies she is his mother and sails away. She prays for justice, a storm wrecks his ship, and Malin is turned to stone. The rock shown at Pantai Air Manis near Padang is presented as him, but the figure there is a 1980s artwork.

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Nyai Endit is rich and stingy: her name is said to come from pedit, Sundanese for "stingy". When an old man begs for water, she refuses him. He pushes his staff into the ground, and when he pulls it out water floods the village. She drowns trying to save her treasure, and the flood becomes the lake Situ Bagendit.

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