Origins of The Story
Prince Damrong believed that the Khun Chang Khun Phaen story was based on true events which took place around 1500 in the reign of King Ramathibodi II. His evidence was a memoir believed to have been taken down from Thai prisoners in Burma after the fall of Ayutthaya in 1767 (Khamhaikan chao krung kao, The testimony of the inhabitants of the old capital). The memoir mentions the name of Khun Phaen in an account of a military campaign against Chiang Mai. However, this memoir is just as much a text of oral history as Khun Chang Khun Phaen itself, and could well have developed from the folktale, rather than vice versa. The campaign against Chiang Mai in the latter part of Khun Chang Khun Phaen seems to be modeled on events which appear in the Ayutthaya and Lanchang chronicles for the 1560s.
The opening chapter of Khun Chang Khun Phaen mentions a gift from the Emperor of China which might be dated shortly before 1600. The third chapter has a date based on a 120-year calendar which can be resolved as 1549/50, 1669/70, or 1789/90.
Most likely Khun Chang Khun Phaen developed over decades or centuries by storytellers absorbing and embellishing several local tales and true stories. Prince Damrong surmised that the original version was much shorter and simpler: Khun Phaen woos and marries Wanthong but then goes to war; Khun Chang seizes her; Khun Phaen returns and in the ensuing squabble, Wanthong is condemned to death. The story then expanded as other episodes were assembled around these leading characters. The whole second half of the standard version shows signs of being an extension which repeats themes and episodes from the first half. Certain episodes are known to have been newly written and incorporated in the nineteenth century. Some episodes are known to be modeled on true events. The arrival of an embassy from Lanchang, for example, is based on the reception of an embassy from Tavoy at Ayutthaya in 1791.
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