The Weaver Bird's Nest and the Monsoon King

In the foothills of the eastern hills around Dharan, the weaver bird is the finest architect alive. Its nest hangs from the tip of the most precarious branch it can find — a long teardrop of woven grass, with the entrance hole pointing downward so that snakes cannot enter. Rai villagers watch the nests go up each April and say: when the weavers build high, the rains will be heavy; when they build low, the rains will be light. They have not been wrong in living memory.

This is how the weaver birds came to know the will of the monsoon king.

Long ago, a weaver bird queen went to the palace of Barsha Dev, the god of rain, to ask him a direct question. She was tired of guessing. Every year her people built their nests and every year the rains came differently — sometimes drowning the lowest nests, sometimes failing so completely that even the high nests baked in the heat.

"Tell me what you will send," she said to Barsha Dev. "So we can build accordingly."

Barsha Dev was charmed by the b