Phaya Khankhak, the Toad King, is the hero of one of the great verse epics of the Lao-Isan world, transcribed from palm-leaf manuscripts by the monk-scholar Phra Ariyanuwat and translated by Wajuppa Tossa. Born to a human king and queen as the Bodhisatta in the ungainly golden form of a toad, he sheds his skin, wins a celestial wife, and becomes a universal monarch so revered that all beings bring him tribute. The slighted sky lord Phaya Thaen avenges himself by withholding rain for seven years, whereupon the Toad King builds a causeway to heaven and leads an army of men, nagas, and stinging creatures that forces Thaen to capitulate. Their settlement is the charter of the Lao-Isan rains: whenever people fire bang fai rockets at the start of the planting season, Thaen must send rain, and the croaking of toads and frogs confirms its arrival. The story, recounted throughout northeastern Thailand and Laos, remains the founding myth of the living Bun Bang Fai rocket festival of the Mekong basin.