A Bridge Between Realms: On Imagining Khmer Myths

Author’s Introduction to The Serpent and the Star

The stories in this series are not scholarly translations, nor strict retellings of preserved Khmer folktales. They are something quieter. They are offerings.

Some rise closely from ancient soil—from tales once whispered in temple courtyards, woven into court dances, or carved along sandstone walls. Others are newly imagined, drawn from the deep wells of mythic feeling that still linger in Angkor’s shadows. But all are shaped in the spirit of Khmer cosmology, sacred symbolism, and the unseen world that flickers just beyond the veil.

Each story has been written with poetic care and reverent joy—not to replace the old, but to walk beside it. Like incense beside stone, or mist upon still water. They are voices that echo—not always exactly, but faithfully—what the naga, the apsara, and the temple may remember.

The first story—The Serpent and the Star—is not part of any recorded Khmer legend. And yet, when I walk beneath the towers of Angkor Wat, or stand by a lotus pond beneath moonlight, I feel its truth everywhere. A naga rising in silence. A celestial being drawn to earth. A temple shaped from longing.

These tales are meant to enchant and to invite—to stir memory in those who have visited these sacred places, and wonder in those who have not. They are bridges between realms, written for spiritually attuned adults and the children who read beside them.

With devotion and joy,
Lucas Varro
Angkor, Cambodia