Old men say that when the Lhotas settled at Nungkamchung [201] a widow had a big pig. One day the boys of the “morung” took the pig, promising to pay for it with rice. But they did not pay, though every day the widow came and said, “Give me back my pig which you bought for rice.” At last she took her iron staff and poured magic powder [202] into it and walked round the “morung,” saying, “Give me back my pig which you bought with rice. Give it back. Give it back,” tapping the ground with her staff as she went. Suddenly the ground opened wherever she had tapped it with her staff containing magic powder, and all the inmates of the “morung” were swallowed up, only those in the front room having time to jump to their feet and escape. The village all set to work to dig them out, but could not dig out a single man, only a wisp of thatch. Stories of the Water Spirit (Tchhüpfu) are common, and usually describe a visit paid by someone to his lair in a deep pool, as in the following. The Boy and the Water Spirit. One day a boy went down to the Doyang to fish. When he did not return home in the evening his parents became very anxious, and in the morning his father took some men down to search for him; but he was nowhere to be found. Then his father was sad at heart and went wandering alone along the Doyang, determined to find at least the dead body of his son. As he went he saw a hair on the ground, and picked it up, thinking it belonged to his son. But it was so long that he only picked up one end of it, and walked on winding it round and round his finger. He went on and on until he had passed eight bends of the river, so long was the hair. At last he came to a Water Spirit, for the hair was one of the Water Spirit’s which he had forgotten to wind round his head. Then the Water Spirit cried out, “Let me go,” but the man replied, “You have seized my son and taken him to your home in the water. I will not let you go till you bring him out and give him back to me.” Then the Water Spirit said, “Let me go and I will bring your son and leave him here. If you do not believe me you may make me swear the most solemn oath known to men.” At this the man let him go, and the Spirit gave him a gift of friendship, dried fish and fresh fish and fish paste, and said, “In the morning I will bring your son out of the water and leave him here. Come at the time when men go to their fields and you will find him.”