Die Entstehung der Sirenen (Khmer: រឿងដើមកំណើតសត្វផ្សោត;[1] English: "The Origin of the Sirenia") is a Cambodian folktale published by Rüdiger Gaudes, wherein a girl lives with a tree god in python form that provides her and her family with treasures, while another family tries to have the same fortune by finding another python and accidentally let their daughter be devoured.
The tale was provided by a source named Koung Chandana, from Chrey Vien, in Prey Chhor district, Kompong Cham.
[4] The tale was also translated into German by author Ruth Sacher as Die Geburt des Delphins ("The Birth of the Dolphin"), also sourced from the Khmer.
[5] People in a village revere and worship a large fig tree (toem jrai, in Thierry's text), where they build an altar with a male and female figures (called "Neak-ta" in Gaudes's) to which they make offerings for fortune and prosperity.
When she grows old, she goes to make an offering to the altar, when the devatā (the spirit that lives in the tree) falls in love with her, as if he knows her from another time.
The girl questions the devata's claims, so, as proof of his powers, he changes back into a human shape, becoming a handsome youth and spending the night with her.
The next night, the tree god comes back to be with his wife in human form again, and her parents spy on their rendezvous.
The next morning, the tree god tells the girl her parents should dig at a certain location which is filled with treasures: gold and silver, jewels, and tableware.
The man brings the serpent home and treats it as a son-in-law, marrying the animal to his daughter in a grand feast.
[13] Thierry states, in her notes to the story, the Dictionnaire Guesdon defines phsot as a type of cetacean that lives in Cambodia, although she supposed that the species described in the tale was a dugong.
[14][15] Ruth Sacher argued that the tale merged Buddhist teachings with animistic and shamanistic ideas in order to present a lesson against material greed.
[20] French ethnologist Eveline Porée-Maspero collected another version of the tale from an informant named Khim, from the village of Pišei.