The golden ax

There was once a very poor man who lived near the forest. He was able to earn enough for a bare existence by cutting firewood, which his wife would barter for rice in the market place.

Sue God For Rain

Once upon a time, there was no rain for long, long time. The ground cracked all over, all plants withered, animals had to suffer from thirsty.

The Mountain of the Woman who is waiting for her husband

Long time ago, in a village on the highland region, lived two orphans,one was a young man about twenty years old, the other was his seven years old sister. Because they were alone in this world, they were all one for the other.

The Story of Luu Binh and Duong Le

Long ago there were two very close friends. One named Luu-Binh, came from a wealthy family; the other, named Duong-Le, came from a pool family.

The story of Truong's wife

The temple to Truong's wife is located on the side of the Hoang river, village of Vu dien, district Ly Nhan, province of Ha Nam. Here is her story.

Why Ducks Sleep Standing On One Leg

Many people must have wondered why ducks are accustomed to sleep in the funny way that they do - with one leg lifted. The Vietnamese have an interesting explanation for this.

After Heaven had completed the creation of the world, there were four ducks who found that they only had one leg each. it was difficult for them to walk, and sometimes they were unable to find enough food. They became very morose when they saw how easily other fowls and animals moved about on two legs.

Vietnamese Legend: Partridge Bird

This story is an attempt by Vietnamese people to explain why a partridge sounds the way it sounds.

Gather around me with some cookies, will you?

A long time ago there was a boy who lost his dad at a young age. His mother mourned over the death for a period of time then decided to remarry. Since the child did not have any other relatives on either side of his family, he was forced to go with his mother to live with her and his stepfather.

The stepfather was a brutal and ill-bred person. He viewed both the mother and child as just people living and eating in his house, nothing more. In the stepfather's eyes, the boy especially was an eye sore since he was not old enough to do anything to help around the house.

The bitterness and hatred the new husband had for the child continued to grow as the days went on. When something went wrong for the stepfather, he would take his anger out upon the little boy. Soon, every day the child was bruised and purple all over.

There was nothing special in the man's house and in fact is he had nothing at all. His living wages were based off going into the forests and getting wood to sell. The woman he just married, on the first day after coming home with him, the man makes her go and chopped down wood so he could sell it in the market.

Unfortunately, that year there was barely any rain, which made finding food become harder. Before the drought, a batch of lumber was able to feed the family for a few days but now it was barely enough for a meal. That the little boy was still young and had no life skills to help during this time became a thorn to the stepfather.

"The child only eats and causes me trouble. He does nothing but burden me," thought the man.

He begged and pleaded with the wife to sell the child to someone else so they could take care of him. No matter what the husband said, the mother refused the idea without a second thought. His mother would rather die with her son than be apart from him.

The desire to kill the child of his wife was all the stepfather could think of. A person's life at that time was worth less than a weed cutter. Furthermore, the man could care less about the boy. The number of people starving continued to increase rapidly as a big batch of wood was now only worth one bowl of rice.

One day when the wife left for the market, the husband used that time to take the child to woods. He lured the small boy by saying, "Do you like to climb the guava trees and catch butterflies? Up in the forests you could do that to your heart's content."

Upon hearing this, the boy begged the stepfather to take him along on the trip to the woods. Amazed by the scenery, the little boy happily trotted behind his stepfather not knowing what tired is. The man led the child deep into the forests. When they arrived to where there were a lot of guava trees, the stepfather told the kid, "Here are the guava trees and your bowl of food. I'll come find you later."

With that being said, the man left the boy without a worry and went off somewhere far away to chop down woods. Later that afternoon, as the man stepped into the house he was shocked to see that the child was home before him. As fate turned out, when the boy was wandering aimlessly in the depth of the woods he came upon a group of monks returning home from their pilgrimage.

The boy was then led home by the monks and with the help of the bowl of rice he was able to have enough energy to return. The stepfather became more and more frustrated as the child told his story. He snapped at the boy.
"So that was the reason why I could not find you?"

And, the legend was born...

That week the stepfather tried another attempt to lure the boy to go with him to the woods. This time he purposely led the child into the unknown part of the forest where no one even dared to enter. When he crept away from the small boy, the stepfather thought to himself.
"If he does not die from the wild beast than he will die from wandering. If that still does not kill him then he will surely die from hunger."
As the afternoon went by and he waited for his stepfather returned, the boy began to despair and started to cry out but only the echo of the forest would reply to him. He ran to search in every direction and corner but the child did not even see a person's shadow.
When the boy became hungry and tired, he took out the bowl of food his stepfather had given him but to his surprise, below a thin layer of rice and vegetables there was only dirt underneath. He was so hungry, the boy started to pick the rice that was covered in dirt and put it into his mouth.
In the end, the boy started to become extremely hungry. He grabbed his bowl and ran everywhere screaming, "Stepfather, where are you? Rice of dirt with pickled eggplant (which translates to Bat cat qua ca). Rice of dirt with pickled eggplant!" His crying did nothing except startle the birds that were resting in the forests. Then the boy died and turned into a partridge bird, who always says, "Bat cat qua ca! Bat cat qua ca!"
After waiting and not seeing her son return, the mother would cry hysterically every day. Knowing that her husband was the one that harmed her son, she would insult him to his face. The mother forced her husband to go find her son and not to come home until he did. Otherwise, if he did not show up with her son then she was going to take him to court.
The stepfather could do nothing except follow his wife's orders and into the woods he went. He searched and searched. All of a sudden in the silent forest, he heard a scream that kept saying, "Bat cat qua ca!" A chill went down his spine as the man heard the saying. It was as if the boy had come back to haunt him for his evil deed.
The continuous echoing scared him, making him ran aimlessly in the forest trying to get away from it. Everywhere he went the voice kept getting nearer and surrounding him. "Bat cat qua ca." Its echo kept haunting the stepfather, causing him to keep on running until he was drained and collapsed onto a rock. A few days later, a group of woodcutters found his body still lying on the edge of the woods.
Another sad story. I tried to make it lighter but it's the best I can do and it still came out depressing. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoyed it.

Good night.

Vietnamese Legend of The Moon Boy

And, the story begins...

Once upon a time in a rural region there was a man named, Cuoi, who was a lumberjack. His only possession was his ax. Like any other day, Cuoi took his ax into the deep forest in search of trees to chop down. After going across a small stream, Cuoi was surprised to come upon a lion's den. Looking back and forth, he only saw four cubs prancing in front of the cave.

Legend of the Mosquito

Let the story begin...

There once was a husband and wife who loved each other dearly and affectionately. On the day of the couple's wedding, they had sworn to never leave one another. If one day something unfortunately happen where one of the couple died, then the other person would join and accompany the one dead to the underworld.

Not long after the couple was married, the young wife suddenly died of unknown causes to the shock of those around her. No one could have described the pain and sorrow of the husband. After the wife's death, the husband attempted suicide every chance he got but all attempts ended in failure under the careful watch of his family.

Near the day of the wife's burial, a monk showed up to tell the young man of a method to bring his wife back. The young man was eager to hear what this monk had to say so he listened to every single word and realized that the method was not difficult at all. All the husband had to do was to be a live healthy person who would persevere and then it would succeed.

What the idea was is that the live person had to cuddle with the deceased to transfer warmth to her three times a day, every day. If this method was followed exactly without stopping every day for three months and ten days, then the dead will come back alive.

The husband was very gracious to the monk and began to do exactly what he had said, with the hope of his love coming back to him. Each day he hugged his wife, trying to transfer his heat and warmth into a cold, dead corpse.

Only three days after he started, the corpse had begun to smell from decomposition. The smell spread throughout the neighborhood. Everyone around the area began to assemble into an angry mob and wanted the family to bury the body. As a last resort, the young man begged the town to help him build a boat so that he could take his wife to another place.

Many people from the village were more than happy to help him in this mission. Within half a day the husband was able to leave with his beloved wife's body. The boat continued to drift endlessly along the river and the husband still held onto his wife each day without stopping.

Although everything seemed hopeless, the man was filled with anticipation for his beloved, who looked as if she was just sleeping peacefully. After awhile on the boat, the couple had finally reached a new place with a green, open space where the husband began to set up camp and find food.

Coincidently while the young man was out getting wood, he met an old man with a cane wandering underneath the open sky as if he was just taking a leisure walk. From head to toe the old man didn't seemed out of the ordinary except for his hair and beard, which were white as snow. "Why would an old man be wandering out in a place like this?" Finding this odd, the young man pondered as to who exactly was this person standing in front of him.

A miracle...

The only explanation the young widower had was that this old man must be Buddha! He then immediately got onto his knees and begged the elderly man to help his wife come back to earth. As expected, the old person was in fact Buddha himself. Buddha saw how much the young man pleaded and how dedicated he was towards his wife, so he decided to give the young man a chance.
All the young man had to do is prick one of his fingers and let exactly three drops of blood fall into his wife's mouth. Once the drops fell into the wife's mouth, she opened her eyes as if she just woke up from what was like a slumber and everything seemed like a dream.
Before the couple went home Buddha asked, "This young man has given you three drops of his blood so that you can revive. Then, can you tell me if you love him?"
As the young woman was about to reply, Buddha intervened, "No worries, if you no longer love your husband then all you have to do is return the three drops of blood to him." With that being said, Buddha saw how anxious the couple was to go home so he sent for his humongous crocodile to lead the way.

Will somebody call "Cheater"?

After half a day had gone by, the crocodile started to become hungry so the creature told the couple to wait for him on land and rest while he got some food to eat. Hand in hand, the husband and wife came across a small inn and entered it to order food. In the inn, there was a particular rich, handsome, young man who noticed the young wife.
The wife, herself, was a beautiful woman who could not be compared to anyone the rich man ever saw, which made her a desirable object. Since the rich man was a merchant, he began trying to "sell" his merchandise by showing the most expensive fabrics and jewelry while saying that the materials were in fact at a low price. All this was in order to catch the attention of the gorgeous wife.
He slowly got to the couple's table and said that his boat was near the inn itself, and it was filled with priceless artifacts for a very cheap price. However, when the husband heard this, the offer did not appeal to him one bit. Once done eating, the young man took his wife and left the inn, ignoring the persistent rich man and arriving to the spot where they were suppose to meet up with the crocodile.
The couple waited underneath the shade and talked for awhile then fell fast asleep. Hours went by, yet the husband and wife were still sleeping due to tiredness. Being completely unaware of what was going on around them, the couple did not realize the rich man followed them.
Waiting was what the rich man did until he was certain the husband was dead asleep. Then he crept toward the wife and woke her up. The rich man made her a tempting offer by saying that his boat was right there by the river and that he had the perfect jewelry that he wanted to give to her.
"My boat is only ten feet away. You do not have to go anywhere far and can come back to your husband at anytime." said the rich man.
Once the wife heard this, she began to sway to the rich man. She got up and followed the man to his boat. In the blink of an eye, under his master's order, the boatman began to leave shore and disappear from the horizon. During that same time the crocodile returned from the river depth and noticed only the husband was laying there sleeping.
The creature woke the young man to ask where his wife had gone but the husband did not know how to answer. In his moment of confusion, the young man blamed the crocodile for eating his wife while he was sleeping. To prove his innocence, the crocodile told him to go inside his stomach and search to see if the woman was in there.
It turned out that all that was in the crocodile's stomach was a pile of fish bones and stones. Realizing he was wrong, the husband apologized to the creature and began searching for his wife on the beach. She was nowhere in sight and the husband began to despair as to where his wife could be.