The legend of Chú Cu?i

The legend of Chú Cu?i

Long ago in Vietnam there was a poor buffalo boy called Chu Cuoi who worked very hard. Every day he would look after the water buffaloes in the rice fields, and collect firewood in the forest. But when the Festival of Tet, the New Year holidays came around, Chu Cuoi was too poor to join in the celebrations. He had no money to buy firecrackers, or to set bowls of rice down to welcome the New Year spirits.

To cheer himself up, Chu Cuoi thought he would celebrate the holidays in his own way. He decided to follow the path he had often seen going through the forest. That day the sounds of the birds singing above him and the flashes of brilliant blue, green or orange feathers soon cheered Chu Cuoi's spirits. He spent a whole hour just watching the butterflies flit from flower to flower.

And that night as he lay under a spreading banyan tree he watched the hundreds of busy fruit bats swoop from tree to tree in the light of the moon.

The next day as he walked on through the forest, Chu Cuoi was delighted to find a tiger cub frolicking in the grass. He tried to pick up the little cub but as he did, a loud growling sound came from nearby. It was the ferocious mother tigress. Chu Cuoi dropped the cub and scrambled up the trunk of the nearest tree as fast as he could. There, Chu Cuoi saw that the little cub was lying motionless on the ground, with the tigress standing over it. He must have killed the little cub when he threw it to the ground!

But then, an amazing thing happened. Chu Cuoi saw the tigress walk down to the edge of the stream and take some leaves from the spreading banyan tree. She chewed the leaves into a pulp and then walked back to her seemingly dead cub. The tigress forced the leaves into her cub's mouth. Miraculously, the cub woke up and jumped to its feet. That tree must have magic properties!

After the tigress and her cub had frolicked away, Chu Cuoi decided to dig up the magic tree and take it home. He planted the tree in his yard and watched it grow. But on the day Chu Cuoi tried to pull some leaves from the tree, it began to leave the ground. He would lose the magic leaves! When he grabbed onto the roots of the tree to try to stop it, the tree carried him up in to the sky. Higher and higher it flew until the tree and Chu Cuoi landed on the moon.

So that is why they say that on a clear night when the moon is full, you can see the figure of Chu Cuoi seated at the foot of the banyan tree. The children of Vietnam wave to Chu Cuoi and sing a song to him:

Chu Cuoi, the dream-time boy

Alone, alone, on the Moon;

Playing with the stars in the lost twilight

Until late has become soon.

Despair is not Hopeless!​

Được sửa chữa bởi - despi on 29/09/2001 06:04