A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

A chief’s favorite wife refuses to participate in the feasts and gifts through which he and his other wives make merit. After their deaths, she is found living as a crane. Her former husband tests her in fish form: though hungry, she releases him whenever she realizes he is alive. After the crane dies she is born again as a gardener’s child and grows into a beautiful young woman.

At a marriage gathering she throws a flower wreath which falls on the chief, now disguised as an elderly man. She accepts him despite the crowd’s ridicule and rises with him into the sky. The wreath becomes the tale’s explanation for chain lightning. The sequence is explicitly successive lives, not a permanent human-crane hybrid or an unnamed member of every bird-maiden tradition.

Woman reborn as a crane and then as a gardener’s daughterSource-specific narrative
01

Origins & earliest records

Historical Laos country within Siam, as identified by the collection

02

Records & interpretation

Complete relevant narrative and Willis G. Craig’s introduction directly read.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India

    Katherine Neville Fleeson, collector/translator · 1899

    III.2, The Origin of Lightning, pp.38–40

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

Katherine Neville Fleeson, Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India (1899)

III.2. III.2, The Origin of Lightning, pp.38–40

Complete relevant narrative read with attached notes; Craig introduction previously read. Historical missionary collection, unnamed individual narrator and original-script name absent. Rebirth, disguise and mistaken resurrection kept distinct. Original paraphrase.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical folktale collectionFleeson, Laos Folk-Lore of Farther India, III.2, The Origin of Lightning, pp.38–40Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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