Shiva carries earth for an old woman's puttu

When the Vaigai broke its banks the Pandya king shared the repair among the households of Madurai, a length of bund to each. An old woman who kept herself by steaming puttu had no son and no coin. A young man came to her stall and said he would carry earth for her if she fed him. She fed him and he went to the river, and every time the overseers looked he was asleep on his basket or back at the stall for more puttu. The stretch stayed open. He was dragged to the king, and the king ordered him whipped, and the cane came down on the king's own back and on the back of every man, woman and child in the city at once. Then the river went down as if it had never risen. The labourer was Shiva. Asked why, he said that he had wanted the whole world to know how an old woman who gave him puttu had fed her god.