Once upon a time there lived a young farmer in a village called Tarub. The name of the young farmer is Joko Tarub. When he was not working on his farm, Joko Tarub would go to the jungle to forage and hunt.

One day, when he was busy foraging in the jungle, he heard women giggling. He went searching where the giggles came from. He arrived in a waterfall and saw 7 beautiful women bathing and playing in the crystal clear water. Joko Tarub stayed there for a while until the sun was almost setting. The beautiful women took their scarves and started to fly to the sky. Joko Tarub realized that they were goddesses.

Joko Tarub started to visit the waterfall regularly. He fell in love with one of the goddesses. He learned that the goddesses used the scarf to fly back to the kingdom in the sky. He paid attention to understand which scarf belonged to this particular goddess. Then one day, he stole that specific scarf.

The beautiful goddess couldn’t fly back to the sky kingdom. It was very late and Joko Tarub popped out from his hiding place. He offered the goddess to return to his home and to stay with him. Having no other choice, the goddess agreed.

The name of the goddess was Nawangwulan. Joko Tarub hid Nawangwulan’s scarf under a huge pile of paddy. Joko Tarub asked Nawangwulan to marry him. Nawangwulan agreed on one condition: Joko Tarub should never question and interfere on how she did her house errands and works.

Joko Tarub and Nawangwulan got married. She started to do household work and errands. Joko Tarub had a lot of questions on how fast she did the work and how she cooked a pot of rice with only one grain of paddy. Joko Tarub kept the questions to himself for a while.

The couple finally got a baby girl. They called her Nawangsih. Nawangwulan still did wonders on her works. One day, Joko Tarub could not hold his curiosity any longer. He opened the pot where Nawangwulan was cooking the rice. He saw only one grain of paddy.

Nawangwulan returned to the kitchen and saw that the one grain of paddy did not change to a pot of rice. She knew that Joko Tarub had opened the lid. She lost all of her goddess abilities. She became human.

Since Nawangwulan no longer had the goddess abilities, she had to cook the rice like other human beings. Instead of cooking one grain of rice, now she had to process by hand a few baskets of paddy to cook everyday. Because she cooked a lot of rice everyday, the pile of paddies in the barn got lower and lower.

Until one day, Nawangwulan found her scarf that was hidden under the pile. She was furious knowing that she was lied to. She confronted Joko Tarub and he begged her to stay. She was too upset to stay and insisted that she would fly back to the sky kingdom. She would only go down to earth to breastfeed Nawangsih.

The waterfall where the goddesses bathed is called Sekar Langit which means the flowers of the sky. The people in Grabag, where Kaleka’s rice is produced, believed that their paddy’s top quality is because they get the blessing from Nawangwulan as their water comes from Sekar Langit waterfall. Also, they believed that the quality of the water they use for irrigation is the best because the goddesses would only want to bathe in the best water.

Because of these beliefs, the farmers in Grabag really take good care of their waterfall. Otherwise, the blessing from the goddess will end just like in the story of their ancestor, Joko Tarub.

If you want to read more about our farmer partners in Grabag, please go here. If you want to know more about the range of our rice products, please go here.