The king had a daughter. She is very beautiful and she fell in love with Nyema the minute she saw him. But at that time, she did not know how she could help Nyema.
Finally, the day came when Nyema was to be thrown into the lake.
The king's daughter then went before the king and pleaded before him. “Please do not throw this man in the lake. But if you want to throw him, throw me in too.”
The king was angry with his daughter because she did not seem to understand that sacrificing Nyema to the lake was the only way to provide water to the Kingdom. So in order to set all this right the king ordered that his daughter also be thrown in the waters along with Nyema.
When Nyema learned of this, he was very sad. He realized that he was being sacrificed to bring water to the people of the kingdom but he did not understand why the king was willing to sacrifice the princess and why she had to die too.
The princess loved Nyema so deeply that she felt bad that Nyema had to die for no fault of his other than being born in the year of the tiger.
When the two of them were brought before the Snake God, the Snake God was able to sense the love that the couple had for each other. This moved the Snake God so much that he decided that neither of them had to be sacrificed. Further the Snake God went even a step further and asked the people not to sacrifice any people anymore because he would not affect the water supply anymore.
After this, the princess went back to her palace and told everyone what had happened there.
Nyema went to the hermit's cave and he told them that he had survived and nothing had happened to him.
The hermit and the second son, Dawa were very happy seeing Nyema alive and well.
Adapted from Tibetan Folk Stories
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