The Poison Giver: Bhutanese Myth or Reality?
In the remote village of Kurtoe, a woman ate alone, slept alone and lived a lonely and dejected life. Villagers were afraid to be her friends, afraid to eat and drink from her hand lest they die. Nobody wanted her legs to be eaten from invisible worms from inside because of consumption of drinks from her hand; nobody wanted his stomach to be swollen because of her food. Her name was Tashi Wangmo and she was accused to be poison giver. However, life for aging woman changed after visit of His Majesty, the fifth Druk Gyalpo. His Majesty drank two cups of wine from her hand proving that she was not as dangerous as villagers made her to be. Recently, I heard that few people have started eating from her hand. Of course there are some who are still cynical. They believed that she is still dangerous. ‘His Majesty was person who had accumulated merits for last three eons and a poison get harm His Person’ was what my mother-in-law told me. She also said if three people eat at same time from