W.Minh Tuan

In the world, almost every country has its own treasures of famous fairy tales and legends.

Germany has wonderful Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are spread all over the world, for example, Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs, Cinderella, The Wolf and Little girl wearing a Red Hood,,,, .

Sweden has a collection of Andersen-Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, equally famous as Germany’s Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are also spread around the world, with famous stories such as The Naked King, The brave tin Soldier, Wild Swans,,,.

Our country of Vietnam also has a treasure trove of famous fairy tales and legends. Although they are not as famous and have not been spread to the whole world as the two books above, they are actually no less attractive, and have great influence on the culture and history of our Vietnamese people.

Now, I try to list here very famous legends from the Hung King period, to better understand the soul and personality of Vietnamese people during the Hung King period:

The first legend: Son Lac, grandson Hong, Mr. and Mrs. Au Co, Lac Long Quan.

The second legend: Chu Dong Tu-Tien Dung, and Da Trach lagoon, from the reign of the third Hung King.

The third legend: Saint Giong-Phu Dong Thien Vuong, around the time of the sixth Hung Vuong.

Fourth legend: Betel and Areca during the period from the first to the sixth Hung Vuong period.

The fifth legend: Watermelon-An Tiem was also around the time of the sixth Hung King.

The sixth legend: Banh chung-banh day was also around the time of the sixth Hung Vuong.

Legend number seven: The love story of Truong Chi-My Nuong, unknown during the reign of King Hung Vuong.

The eighth legend: Son Tinh-Thuy Tinh during the reign of the 18th last Hung King.

Ninth legend: My Chau – Trong Thuy during the time of King An Duong.

Let’s try to understand the soul of Vietnamese people through these 9 famous legends.

The first legend: Son Lac – Grandson Hong, Dragon – Grandchild Fairy, and Mr. and Mrs. Lac Long Quan and Au Co, and 100 eggs.

What does the words Lac child – Hong grandchild, Dragon child – Fairy grandchild mean?

Lac, that is Lac Viet people, is the ancestor of our Vietnamese people today.

As for the word Hong, it means Hong Bang, that is, Hong Bang thi – the Chinese character is 鴻龐氏, meaning Hong Bang Era, which is the period of 18 Hung Kings, according to legend starting in 2879 BC, to 258 BC, lasting 2622 years.

There is an explanation for the word Lac and the word Hung Vuong, saying that the word Lac is the word Hung, read incorrectly, because the words Lac and Hung written in Chinese characters are only different on the left side, making it easy to misread and copy wrong.

Therefore, it is possible that the first name was Lac Vuong, then read and written incorrectly as Hung Vuong.

But we don’t need to argue much about the words Lac Vuong, or Hung Vuong.

The word Hung Vuong has been deeply imprinted in the minds of Vietnamese people for thousands of years, so there is no need to do the “split hair into four” thing to change the word Hung Vuong to the word Lac Vuong.

If someone wants to change, no one will follow.

Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu wrote that Mr. Lac Long Quan married Ms. Au Co, gave birth to a sac of eggs, which hatched into 100 sons, who were the ancestors of the Bach Viet people, who lived from the south of Dong Dinh Lake in China, to our country of Vietnam today.

It is very possible that the word Lac Vuong started from the name of Mr. Lac Long Quan, the second ancestor of the Vietnamese people, because the first ancestor of the Vietnamese people was Mr. Kinh Duong Vuong, the father of Mr. Lac Long Quan.

Chinese history calls the Bach Viet people all the people living in China who are not of Han ethnicity.

According to legend:

“Year of the Dog, first year. In the past, Emperor Viem’s third-generation grandson of the Than Nong family was De Minh and gave birth to De Nghi. Then De Minh patrolled the South, went to Ngu Linh, married Vu Tien’s daughter, and gave birth to King Kinh Duong Vuong.

King Kinh Duong Vuong married Dong Dinh Quan’s daughter named Than Long, giving birth to Lac Long Quan.

The birth name of King Lac Long Quan was Sung Lam, son of King Kinh Duong Vuong.

King Lac Long Quan married De Lai’s daughter, Au Co, and gave birth to a hundred sons (legend is that they gave birth to egg sacs), who were the ancestors of Bach Viet.

One day, Mr. Lac Long Quan told Mrs. Au Co: I am a Dragon, you are a Fairy, we cannot live together for long. So you should take your 50 children to the mountains. I took 50 children to the sea.”

The Dragon-Fairy descendant is derived from the above sentence, because Mr. Lac Long Quan is of the Dragon breed, Mrs. Au Co is of the Fairy breed. And today’s Vietnamese people are the descendants of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, of both Dragon, and Fairy origin.

Some people say that the beginning of our Vietnamese history was division, because Lac Long Quan and Au Co could not live together and had to separate.

Is that division still continuing today?

When Mr. Lac Long Quan ascended the throne, he took the title Hung Hien Vuong. Among the 100 sons of Mr. and Mrs. Lac Long Quan-Au Co, the first son to succeed King Lac Long Quan was the third Hung Vuong, named Hung Quoc Vuong.

And the interesting thing is that Mr. and Mrs. Lac Long Quan and Au Co did not take their children to invade other countries’ lands, but just went to exploit mountains, breaking rocks, encroaching seas, building the young country of Van Lang.

Another interesting question is why didn’t Mrs. Au Co give birth to 50 daughters and 50 sons, but all were only sons?

And although the legend does not say that Mrs. Au Co gave birth to a daughter, the legend shows that Mrs. Au Co had the same power as Mr. Lac Long Quan, because she led 50 sons up the mountain, equal to Mr. Lac Long. Quan led 50 sons down to the sea.

According to legend, the Bach Viet are about 100 Vietnamese ethnic groups, living scattered from the south of Dong Dinh Lake in China, extending to the north of Vietnam today.

So it can be said that Mr. and Mrs. Lac Long Quan-Au Co are the ancestors of 100 Bach Viet ethnic groups, living scattered from the Dong Dinh Lake region of China, extending to the North of Vietnam today.

Even the name “Viet”越, according to Chinese characters, is derived from the word for ax. That is, the Vietnamese peoples have the ax as a symbol for the Bach Viet peoples.

In the patterns on the Bronze Drums of Vietnam, and archaeological relics in the south of Dong Dinh Lake in China, people find many relics and ax-shaped patterns.

No ax relics were found among the Han ethnic groups from the north of Dong Dinh Lake upwards, only from South of Dong Dinh Lake southward.

Regarding language, there are interesting details: Vietnamese has adjectives after nouns, for example we say flowers beautiful, not beautiful flowers, say king Hung, not Hung king.

But in the Kinh Thi-Poetry series, which is considered a product of Chinese folk, dating back over 3,000 years ago, there are many ways of writing expressing adjectives after nouns in Vietnamese.

For example, some names of ancient Chinese kings have Vietnamese names, such as Kings Shennong, De Yao, De Shun, and De Kho.

If called in Chinese, adjectives come before nouns, it would be Nong Than, Yao Emperor, Shun Emperor, Khoc Emperor.

Because the Chinese called the ancient Chinese kings as So kinh, Qin King, Jin King, not King of So, King of Tan, King of Tan.

However, although we say King Hung in Vietnamese, we say Hung Vuong-Hung Emperor in Chinese, because we were under more than 1000 years of Chinese domination, we were influenced by the Chinese language.

When Vietnamese people say “Lac’s children, Hong’s Grandchildren”, or Dragon’s children, Tien’s Grandchildren, it means that we Vietnamese people are descendants of Lac Long Quan and Au Co, of 18 Hung Kings more than 4,000 years ago.

And I believe that the 50 children who followed father Lac Long Quan to the sea and the 50 children who followed mother Au Co to the mountains are not a division, but a division to explore and expand the country, to have our country Vietnam of 4000 years of civilization today.///