Join us at the campfire for tales from around the world, told by storytellers of all backgrounds and creeds. From the heros and heroines of old, let us relearn and rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. Shhh..the story begins..

There once lived in Tibet a young couple whose love was strong enough to survive not only the opposition of their parents, but even death itself. With the passing of time, the names of the lovers have been lost, but their story has persisted.

Each day, the couple would meet at a ford where they would bring their families' yaks to drink. One morning, after having seen each other several times, they fell into conversation. Such was the delight in their exchange, that they remained by the ford talking for many hours and it was only with great reluctance that they parted, agreeing to meet again the next morning. By the time of that second encounter, both knew that they were in love.

The weeks that followed were anxious ones for the young couple. Marriages in ancient Tibet were family matters, often arranged at birth, and unplanned unions were considered to be shameful. They had to hide their love from their families as they hurried each morning to meet by the banks of the ford.

One day, the young man seemed more distracted than ever as he waited for his love to appear. When she finally arrived, they had barely exchanged greetings when he revealed to her the secret that had kept him in such trepidation. He had brought with him a rich family heirloom...a silver earring inlaid with a large turquoise...as a gift for his sweetheart. At the sight of the beautiful token, the girl fell silent for she knew that to accept it would be an irrecoverable pledge of her love. Then, suddenly and impulsively, she unwound her braid and allowed the young man to place the earring deep into her long, raven hair. At that instant, she resigned herself to accept whatever consequences might result.

A young girl, radiant in her first love, however, cannot hide her emotions from a mother's scrutiny and it was not long before the earring was discovered. Realizing immediately the depth of her daughter's committment, the mother decided that only the most desperate of measures would save the honor of the family. She called to her eldest son and commanded him to kill the interloper who had stolen the affections of her child.

This order was not strictly obeyed, however, for the son truly had little heart to complete the task. Finding the young man, he aimed his arrow so that it would merely wound his sister's lover. He was horrified when the youth fell to the ground writhing in agony, for he had been unaware that his mother had taken the precaution of poisoning the tip of the arrowhead in anticipation of her son's reluctance to carry out the deed.

The girl was overcome with grief when she heard of her love's death and decided upon a course of action that would forever release her from her misery. Begging her father for permission to attend her sweetheart's funeral, she hurried to the service only to find that the body had already been laid out on the ceremonial pyre. Try as they might, however, the young man's family were unable to get the kindling to catch on fire.

Approaching the pyre, the girl removed her cloak. To the amazement of the other mourners, she cast the garment onto the wood which immediately flared and began to burn. With a cry of desperation, the girl hurled herself onto the crackling flames of her lover's bier, and the two bodies were consumed together.

The onlookers were horrified at what they had just witnessed. Word of the tragedy spread quickly and it was not long before the girl's mother was hurrying to the scene. She arrived before the embers had begun to cool and, in a fury, resolved that the young couple should not be allowed to remain united, not even in death. She insisted that their skeletons, which had become fused together in the fiery heat, be separated.

The mourners sent for a local shaman who demanded to know what the two lovers had been most afraid of in life. The girl, he was told, had always loathed frogs and the boy had lived in terror of snakes so, a frog and a snake were duly captured and set free near the two corpses. The bones at once leaped miraculously apart and then, at the insistence of the unfortunate young girl's mother, the two piles were buried on opposite banks of the river in order that the lovers should be kept asunder for all eternity.

Within a month, however, two saplings sprouted from the graves. They grew with unnatural speed and were soon widely-spreading trees whose branches stretched out across the water and intertwined. To those who passed by the place, it seemed that that the two trees were reaching out to embrace one another and children who played nearby would fearfully report that the enlaced branches whispered with words of love.

Angrily, the girl's mother commanded that the trees be cut down, but every time the woodchopper's axe reduced them to stumps, they sprang back up agin...each time stronger and more quickly growing than the time before. And so, in a manner that nobody could have ever foreseen, the two managed to display their devotion, even from the grave, and their love continued to flourish even after death.