Myth of the Week · Pakistan
Saif ul Muluk for kids: the prince and the fairy lake of Pakistan
· P.Sean Tales
High up in the mountains of Pakistan there's a green lake named after a prince from a story. The lake is real, and so is the story people tell about it.
The story is an old qissa, a long love story told in verse. It starts far away in Egypt. A prince named Saif ul Muluk dreams about a face so lovely that he can't stop thinking about it. Wise people tell him she is Badri Jamala, a fairy princess, and fairies are only found where fairies want to be found. So he leaves his comfortable palace behind, picks up a walking stick and hits the road.
The trip takes years. He crosses seas and deserts and runs into deos, the giant demons of the old tales. It finally ends at a green lake high above the Kaghan valley, where the fairies come down on full moon nights.
Badri Jamala came to that lake with her six sisters, flying all the way from Koh Qaf, the fairy mountain. It was the one place in the human world quiet enough and high enough and pretty enough for fairies. In the old telling the prince keeps her from flying home. Our book uses the kinder ending that the singers also knew, where the fairy chooses to stay.
The lake is called Lake Saiful Muluk. It sits about three thousand meters up, with snowy peaks all around it and a mountain called Malika Parbat, the Queen of Mountains, standing over it. The boatmen there still tell the prince's story every summer evening, and they'll tell you with a straight face that on full moon nights it's better to leave the shore to the fairies.
Did you know? The story of Saif ul Muluk was one of the best-loved verse romances around, sung in Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashto and Urdu.
Color the legend yourself
Prince Saif ul Muluk, Badri Jamala and the lake of the fairies are all in Myths & Legends of Pakistan, along with the markhor, Heer and Ranjha, and Sheikh Chilli.
Or start free: grab the free coloring pages.
You can find them in our book: Myths & Legends of Pakistan.