Keong Emas
Encyclopedia
Keong Emas is a popular Javanese folklore
about a princess magically trasformed and contained in a golden snail
shell. The folklore is a part of popular Javanese Panji cycle
telling the stories about the prince Panji Asmoro Bangun (also known as Raden Inu Kertapati) and his consort, princess Dewi Sekartaji (also known as Dewi Chandra Kirana).
One day a poor old widow, Mbok Rondo Dadapan, who always fished along the river, found the golden snail and took it home as a pet. There, she put the snail in a jar and took good care of it. All of sudden, the unexpected good things took place in Mbok Rondo's live.
Coming back from her daily fishing, she would find delicious dishes on the table and the house is cleaned. She wondered who had been so nice to take care of her house, to do the cooking and house chores. This strange event went on for several days, she could not resist to find out who was the mysterious and kind person was. So, one day, instead of fishing, she peeped through a hole in the wall of her house.
After waiting and hiding, finally she saw an amazing scene. She saw a beautiful princess coming out of the jar and starting to clean the house and preparing the meal.
The next day, the same thing happened. Without wasting any time Mbok Rondo rushed into the house and smashed the jar altogether with the snail shell in it with stone mortar. The homeless Dewi Sekartaji could not turn back into a snail shell, and the magic spell was broken. She was then adopted by Mbok Rondo as her daughter.
Meanwhile, Raden Panji Asmoro Bangun searching for his wife. He wandered from one village to another, finally reaching Dadapan village where he found his beloved wife. Filled with happines and love, they went back to their kingdom, taking along good old Mbok Rondo.
Theatre in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah
, Jakarta.
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
about a princess magically trasformed and contained in a golden snail
Snail
Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...
shell. The folklore is a part of popular Javanese Panji cycle
Panji (prince)
Panji was a legendary prince in East Java, Indonesia. His life has formed the basis of a cycle of Javanese stories. Along with the Ramayana and Mahabharata, this cycle is the basis of various poems and a genre of wayang known as wayang gedog -- "gedog" meaning "mask"...
telling the stories about the prince Panji Asmoro Bangun (also known as Raden Inu Kertapati) and his consort, princess Dewi Sekartaji (also known as Dewi Chandra Kirana).
The story
There is several versions of Keong Emas legend known in Indonesia. The most common one is the legend describes the romance, the separation and reunion of Raden Panji Asmoro Bangun and his wife; Dewi Sekartaji. It all starts when the King of Antah Berantah kingdom desires to take Dewi Sekartaji his wife, and to do so he kidnapped her. Fortunately, the god Batara Narada saved Dewi Sekartaji by changing her into a golden snail. The god told Keong Emas to drift along the river in order to find her husband, Raden Panji Asmoro Bangun.One day a poor old widow, Mbok Rondo Dadapan, who always fished along the river, found the golden snail and took it home as a pet. There, she put the snail in a jar and took good care of it. All of sudden, the unexpected good things took place in Mbok Rondo's live.
Coming back from her daily fishing, she would find delicious dishes on the table and the house is cleaned. She wondered who had been so nice to take care of her house, to do the cooking and house chores. This strange event went on for several days, she could not resist to find out who was the mysterious and kind person was. So, one day, instead of fishing, she peeped through a hole in the wall of her house.
After waiting and hiding, finally she saw an amazing scene. She saw a beautiful princess coming out of the jar and starting to clean the house and preparing the meal.
The next day, the same thing happened. Without wasting any time Mbok Rondo rushed into the house and smashed the jar altogether with the snail shell in it with stone mortar. The homeless Dewi Sekartaji could not turn back into a snail shell, and the magic spell was broken. She was then adopted by Mbok Rondo as her daughter.
Meanwhile, Raden Panji Asmoro Bangun searching for his wife. He wandered from one village to another, finally reaching Dadapan village where he found his beloved wife. Filled with happines and love, they went back to their kingdom, taking along good old Mbok Rondo.
Other versions
There is several versions of the story concerning the cause of the princess being magically turned into a golden snail. Other than transformed by Batara Narada to help her escape from captivity, other version holds that the magic curse was casted upon her by a witch on the order of her jealous sister, Dewi Galuh Ajeng, that also desired to marry prince Panji. Other version hold that the princess accidentally step on a snail and broke its shell, actually the snail is an evil witch in disguise and then she casted the curse upon the princess. Other parts of the story, such as the princess was saved by an old widow and she periodically transformed back to her human form to repay the kindness of old widow and finally reunited with her husband, is remain the same.Popular culture
Keong Emas is a popular Indonesian fairytale being told for generations and often featured in many children storybooks. The moral is to taught the children to be kind and grateful, willing to repay the kindness they have received from others. The tale of Keong Emas inspired the architectural design of Keong Emas IMAXIMAX
IMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
Theatre in Taman Mini Indonesia Indah
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah
Taman Mini Indonesia Indah or "Beautiful Indonesia Miniature Park" is a culture-based recreational area located in East Jakarta, Indonesia. It has an area of about...
, Jakarta.