Bi Dao, the Winter Melon Boy

Large boulders lie scattered across a valley floor, some tilted, some toppled, as if someone had just flung a giant handful of stones down from the mountain. The valley is called Khôm Bon, and it lies in Mường So. The area is now part of Phong Thổ commune, in Lai Châu province. Anyone passing through for the first time has to stop for a moment. Among the stones stand a few ancient trees, lim ironwood, táu and sến. Their trunks are so thick that several people together cannot reach around them. They stand in silence, like guards keeping watch.

When a child asks why the stones lie in such a jumble, the Thái of this area point toward the old trees and begin to tell a story. The Thái are one of Vietnam's ethnic groups, and Lai Châu is one of the provinces where they mainly live. The story is a very old one. It is the story of Bí Đao.

Back then, Mường So was still called Chiềng Sa. A Thái husband and wife lived there and farmed the hillside fields. They were gentle and hardworking. Their only sorrow was that after many years they still had no child. Every morning the wife went down to the stream and into the forest. All the while she longed to hear a child laughing in their quiet stilt house.

Then one day her wish came true, but in a way no one expected. The wife gave birth to a child who was perfectly round, as round as a winter melon just picked from the trellis. The baby had no arms and no legs yet. It was simply a warm, round shape lying snug in its mother's arms. The couple looked at their child with love and with bewilderment. They did not know how they would ever raise such an unusual baby.

The news spread through the whole village in less than a day. People came to look, then to talk, then to shake their heads. Some felt sorry for the family. Some laughed behind their backs. Some told the couple they should just give the child up and spare themselves the burden. Amid all this talk, the father and mother hung their heads with heavy hearts. There was even a moment when they were about to carry their child away to be buried.

Just then, a small but clear voice rose from the round little shape.

"Mother, Father, please do not bury me. When I grow up, I will repay you for all you have done for me."

The couple froze. Their child, who had no arms or legs yet, had just spoken, and spoken such loving, dutiful words. The mother burst into tears and bent down to hold her child close. From that day on they called him Bí Đao, which means winter melon. They raised him without a word of complaint, no matter what the rest of the village thought.

So Bí Đao grew up, held in his parents' arms and surrounded by the scornful looks of others. Yet anyone willing to sit and talk with him for a while came away surprised. He spoke cleverly and knew far more than other children his age. Every answer he gave made the grown-ups nod. Once, out in the fields, the father met a strange old man passing by, who put a few tricky questions to him. Bí Đao, back at home, answered for his father, smoothly and sharply. When the old man heard the answers, he only smiled and walked on, and then he was nowhere to be seen. The father went home and looked at his son. In his heart he began to believe that this child, whom the whole village looked down on, was no ordinary boy.

The years passed peacefully, until one day terrible news arrived. Raiders were coming from far away, many and fierce. They poured into the lands of the region, bent on looting the villages of the Thái. The young men of the area were anxious, and the old people sighed. Everyone feared for their stilt houses and their fields of rice.

When Bí Đao heard this, he could not rest. He went to his father and begged him to ask permission on his behalf to go and fight the raiders, to protect the land and its villages. Hearing this, the father felt love for his son, and worry too. A child as round as a winter melon could hardly go into battle. People would only laugh at them again. He hesitated and did not dare say yes.

But Bí Đao kept pleading. Then, just as his impatience was boiling over, a great clap of thunder rang out across the sky and echoed through the whole valley. With that thunderclap, something extraordinary happened. The boy's round body stretched out. It grew a head, then two arms, then a pair of sturdy legs. In the blink of an eye, where the round child had been, there now stood a tall young man. His head nearly touched the roof of the stilt house, and his eyes shone like stars.

Inside the stilt house, everything went still for a moment. The mother stood rooted to the spot, a hand over her mouth. She looked up at her son, who had just grown beyond her reach. Then, from the sky, a beautiful white horse came down into the yard, its long mane streaming. Bí Đao said farewell to his parents and leapt onto the horse's back. The white horse gave a loud neigh and galloped off as if flying, straight toward the raiders.

The young man rode straight to a high mountain of rock. An ancient lim tree had grown there for ages, its roots reaching deep into the heart of the mountain. Bí Đao reined in the horse, wrapped both arms around the trunk and heaved with all his strength. The giant tree tore loose, roots and all. At that very moment the whole mountain shook and burst apart. Earth and rock came roaring down like a waterfall. The raiders were marching past the foot of the mountain. As the ground lurched and boulders came thundering down, they were struck with terror. They threw down their spears and blades and fled in every direction, never daring to look back. In no time the raiders had vanished from the land, and the Thái villages were at peace again.

The villagers ran out, cheering with joy. They wanted to find the young man who had saved the whole land and thank him. But when they looked up, all they saw was the white horse carrying Bí Đao lightly into the sky. It rose higher and higher, until it vanished into the clouds above the mountaintop. He was gone. Behind him he left a jumble of earth and stone, and a great lim tree lying fallen on the mountainside.

The Thái say that the place where the earth and rock poured down that day later became Khôm Bon valley. The large boulders scattered across the valley floor are stones from the mountain that broke apart long ago. As for the ancient trees standing silently nearby, the Thái still see them as traces of the tale of Bí Đao.

To this day, whenever they lead their grandchildren through Khôm Bon, the old people stop and point to the stones and the old trees. They tell of a child the whole village once looked down on. He was as round as a winter melon and had no hands at all. Yet he was the one who burst open a whole mountain to keep the villages safe. The stones still lie there and the trees still stand there. And the story goes on being handed down, from one generation to the next, in the heart of the valley at Mường So.