Once upon a time, in a land called Degyi Chungne, there was an old farmer woman who did nothing but work hard, always rising early in the morning and going to sleep late at night.

One day, the old woman weeded the plants in a square field of gleaned barley. The next day, when the old lady approached the square barley field like before—oh my—all the gleaned barley was gone, not a single shoot remained. The old woman looked at the footprints in the field and knew that a monkey had been imitating her, but that she had no means of catching the old monkey, and so she gave up, having no way to stop it.

Again, one day the old farmer woman, because she had planted the radish and cabbage seeds too close together, separated each of the radishes and a few cabbages and thinned them out. The next day as she approached the vegetable field—oh my—the radishes and cabbage had been separated out completely. The old woman got really angry; she thought, “If I have no way to catch the old monkey that imitates humans by any means or plans whatever, needless to say a similar situation will happen later.”

So she brought a square white cushion and put it down near the barley field. She sat up and down on it, and rolled over on it a few times. Then she put glue on it and left it.

In the evening the old monkey imitated the old lady; when it sat up and down and rolled over on the cushion, it stuck to the glue and could not move. The next day the old woman captured the monkey alive.

—Chab 'gag Rdo rje tshe ring, Qinghai Folk Literature 1, 1991.