SINHALA FOLKLORE .

2-How Sweet Potatoes(“bathala”) came to exist

Once long ago there lived an old woman who lived alone after the death of her husband. All their children had moved out after marriage. They were all poor and did not have much to share with their mother.

The old woman was also struggling to earn a living. She earned a couple of pennies by selling banana and areca palm(puwak).

One day the mother decided to visit her daughter who lived with her family in a nearby village. She walked all the way with the help of her walking stick. She arrived at her daughter’s home.

Meanwhile the daughter was cooking some rice for her kids. She was also very poor and lived admist many hardships. And when her mother arrived at her home at noon she was not happy about it at all. She invited her mother inside while thinking “If I offer my mother some rice there will not be enough rice for my kids. They haven’t had anything for breakfast either”.So instead of inviting her mother to have some lunch she said “O mother we have been having such a hard time. We couldn’t afford any rice and we haven’t cooked anything today. But if you visit my sister who lives nearby you shall definitely have a good meal”.

The mother replied “O dear then could you please fetch me some water. I wish for all your troubles to go away. May the triple jem bless you”. She drank the water and walked away in the scorching sun.

After her mother left the daughter called her children to have lunch. She went to the rice pot and took off the lid. To her horror she saw that the rice had turned into blood. The entire pot of rice was now a pot of red blood.

“O dear god! Look what happened! This happened because of my wrong doing towards my mother. I should have given her at least a bit of rice. O dear lord please forgive me! I have committed a terrible crime!”. She was very upset and heartbroken. She sat there for hours in grief.

Alast she took the pot and dumped the blood behind her house. She shouted “batha le!”(“the rice is blood”) as the blood flowed across her backyard.

After a few months a red coloured vine started to grow from where she had dumped the blood. This vine was completely red, even its leaves were red. And in a short time this vine grew all across the village it thrived in the surrounding environment. Cattle, goats, rabbits and a lot of other creatures started eating it. The villagers tried to eliminate the vines but they failed it grew everywhere. It bore large red coloured yams.

After sometime the daughter got even poorer to the point that she couldn’t even afford food to feed her kids. Her children were crying in hunger. And finally she decided to eat the red yams which grew in her backyard. She thought “I cannot bear this any longer I will boil it and eat it. Doesn’t matter even if we die at least we would have our stomachs full.” She dug out a few yams and bolied it. She fed it to her children and ate some herself.

The yams were sweet and tasty. They didn’t die. They felt strong and lively. Thereafter they started eating these yams everyday. She told her fellow villagers about the yams and taught them to consume the yams too. She called it “bathale ala”.

Later this bathale ala was grown in many villages and it spread far and wide throughout the country.The people called it “bathale ala” too and afterwards it changed into “bathala”. And as time passed by new varieties of “bathala ala” were created such as “sudupata bathala”(white coloured sweet potatoes), “kahapata bathala”(yellow coloured), “seeni bathala”(sugar like sweet potato) etc. And it remains to this day as a favourite of many.

And that was how “bathala” or sweet potato was created according to Sinhala folklore.