Some days later, Choron, the daughter of Garwa the blacksmith, found a dirty young beggar eating in their pea-field.  Seizing him by the ear, she brought him to her father.  “Are you my father?” the disguised Gesar asked with studied innocence.  “When I was little the other children called me bastard.   And when I went to my mother in tears, she comforted me and said, ‘Your father is a smith in the land of Hor.’ ”

Being kind but by no means foolish, the smith replied, “Am I indeed your father? Can you pick out all my tools from a hundred others?”  But the beggar identified each one.  Maneney in the guise of a turquoise fly—unnoticed by anyone but Gesar—had landed on each tool in turn.  And so Gesar was accepted in the smith’s family and began his apprenticeship.

Detail of thangka; knights and helpful deities.

Soon the boy had gained some renown for his work, so that when the Lady Dukmo came to the smithy for a golden ornament, Garwa gave the work to his son.  When the work was done, Lady Dukmo came for her ornament.  But it could not be found.  Gesar had hidden it in her dress.  When she rose to leave and it fell out, he proclaimed her a thief!  Dukmo’s maidservant struck him so that his cap flew off.  For a moment Dukmo thought she recognized the teasing features of Joru in the tuma-plain.

All this time the hero had been working continually on an iron chest.  One day Garwa lost his temper.  “Why not do some proper work?” he shouted.  “Why, day after day, are you working on that box?”  “Well,” answered his son, “anyone who sits in this chest can see into the gods’ world as well as the land of men.”  Bemused but believing, the old smith climbed in to see this miracle for himself. 

Suddenly Gesar snapped down the lid and turned the key in its lock.  Threatening to sink the chest in a nearby river, he extracted a fearful promise: “Take an oath on the gods’ world and on the land of men!  Help me fashion an iron rope so that I can climb into the golden castle of Kurkar and I will let you go.”