Many people tried to follow him and overhear his rambling, even raiding and despoiling many places in their greedy search for Pagan’s hidden wealth. The royal astrologer thought there might be hope for his son if the ashes of his burned books could be gathered and restored. But a cockerel had been scratching among the ashes, scattering them to the winds. It was too late. The greatest of fortune-tellers had lost his gift.

Stephen J. Osmond is associate senior editor of the Culture section. The stories retold in this essay are based in part on oral accounts given by guides in Bagan and on chapters found in a battered copy of Burmese Folk Tales by Maung Htin Aung, published in 1948 in Calcutta by Oxford University Press, which the author purchased from a vendor in the Ananda temple complex.