CAMBODIA

The Two Women Scrambled for a Baby

Once there were two women who had respective babies. The baby of one
woman had died and the baby of another woman was still alive. One day, the
woman with the live baby held her baby in the arm to bathe it. Coincidentally, the
woman whose baby had already been dead came and walking and said. “Hi friend,
your baby exactly resembles mine. Can I hold and kiss yours little?” The woman
with the baby handed her baby to that woman, who kissed and breastfed the baby
and walked to her home with the baby being held in her hands. The woman who
was the mother called out: “Hey, where are you taking my baby?” The woman
whose baby had died replied: It is my baby. Why do you say it is yours?
The two women started quarrelling about the baby and they finally went to
the court together. The woman who took the other woman’s baby told the judge:
Your honour, when I was holding my baby, this woman saw it walked after me,
claiming that the baby was hers. She asked me allow her to hold and kiss my baby
and I let her do it, but she kissed and breastfed my baby and walked to her home
with my kid, so please help solve the problem for me, your honour. The judge
spent three days and nights solving the case, but could not settle it, so he took the
two women to see the king and told the king what had happened. Out of his insight
and extra ordinary wisdom, the king was able to see through the problem quickly,
so he ordered the kid to be placed in the middle and told the two women to try to
scramble for it.
The king said to the two women. The kid will belong to the one who can
scramble for it first. Upon hearing that, the two women started scrambling for the
baby. The woman whose baby had been dead quickly snatched the baby’s leg
mercilessly without being afraid of tearing its arm and legs. As the woman who
was the baby’s real mother, she was very angry with the impostor, but she pitied
the baby so much that she tried to hold the baby gently. However, when she saw
the impostor doing her utmost to get the baby without caring about breaking the
kid’s bones, the woman who was the real mother let go of her poor kid and allowed
the impostor to get it easily king then said: the woman who let go of the baby and
allowed the other woman to get the baby was the real mother as she did it out of
pitying the kid. And the other woman is not the real mother because she did not
show any mercy to the kid and tried to get the kid, by hook and by crook. After
saying that, the king ordered the baby returned to the real mother and the woman
who was the impostor to be severely punished so that she would not dare to do that
again.