Cuoi, the Man in the Moon

On the night of the full moon, the moon hangs round and brilliant overhead. In a yard, a group of children huddle together. They all crane their necks, pointing at the moon and chattering away. Look, there is the shadow of a tree. Yes, and someone is sitting under it. They all want to know who he is, and why he is sitting on the moon.

Every Vietnamese child asks that question at least once. The answer has been around for a very long time. It goes back to when today's grandparents were tiny, and their grandmothers told it by the light of an oil lamp. It is the story of a young man named Cuội and a wondrous banyan tree.

Long ago, there lived a young man named Cuội, and he was very poor. Every day he took his axe into the forest to cut firewood. The work was hard, his shirt was thin, and his meals were plain. Still, Cuội went through his days cheerfully.

Then one day, while Cuội was cutting wood deep in the forest, he heard a desperate roaring from a thicket nearby. Looking in, he saw a few tiger cubs lying still, no longer breathing. The mother tiger stood beside them, howling wildly. Cuội was so frightened that he was about to run. But before he could take a step, he saw the mother tiger do something very strange.

The mother tiger rushed to a leafy banyan tree close by and clawed off a few leaves. She took them in her mouth, chewed them, and fed them to each cub in turn. Only a moment later, the little cubs began to stir. Then they stood up, and then they were running and leaping as if nothing had happened.

Cuội stayed hidden behind the bushes, eyes wide, heart pounding. He stared at that magic banyan, stared and stared. Only one thought filled his head. This tree could bring the dead back to life.

Cuội waited until the mother tiger had led her cubs far away before he dared to go near the banyan. He pulled the tree up, wrapped its roots with care, and carried it home on his shoulder. He planted it in a corner of his garden. Every day he watered it with clean water, tending it as he would a little brother. Before long, the banyan put out new shoots and leaves, green and thriving in the corner of the garden.

And then word began to spread about the woodcutter whose leaves could bring the dead back. More and more villagers came to his house, the sick, the injured, and those hanging between life and death. Cuội carried the leaves to them himself, saving one person and then the next. Everyone he saved was soon as healthy as before.

One day, the daughter of a rich man from the next village fell into the river. When they pulled her out, she was no longer breathing. Her family ran everywhere in a panic, looking for a healer, but no one could save her. At last, someone thought of Cuội. He ran to her and treated her with a few leaves from the magic banyan. After a while, the girl opened her eyes and looked around. Then she sat up, bewildered, as if waking from a long sleep.

The rich man was overjoyed. He hugged his beloved daughter, then turned to Cuội and looked at the young man for a long while. Then he spoke. "This young man has saved my child's life. Whatever he wants, he has only to choose."

Cuội could hardly believe his ears. The poor young woodcutter stood there with his calloused hands. He looked at the rich man's lovely daughter, then quietly said that all he asked was to marry her. The girl knew Cuội had saved her life, so she agreed, and her father agreed too. So the two became husband and wife. Cuội brought his wife home to the little house with the magic banyan in the corner of the garden.

His wife was gentle and hardworking, and she loved her husband dearly. The two of them lived together very happily. There was just one thing Cuội reminded her of again and again. The banyan in the garden was sacred. It had to be watered with clean water, and dirty water must never be poured on its roots.

His wife nodded and kept her husband's words in mind. Once, twice, three times, every day she watered the tree with clean water, and the tree grew bigger, greener and stronger.

But then one morning, Cuội left for the forest at first light to cut wood. His wife stayed home alone, busy tidying up. When it was time to water the tree, she went out to the garden with a ladle and scooped water from a bucket nearby. By a slip of the hand, she scooped from the bucket of dirty water that stood beside the clean one. She poured it over the roots, and only when she had finished did she realize her mistake.

At that moment, the ground began to tremble gently. Then the banyan roots began to stir. They were as thick as a man's arm, and they had gripped the earth so firmly. The roots drew in and curled up. The base of the banyan began to pull free of the ground, slowly, then faster. Then it began to float on the wind, rising toward the sky inch by inch.

Just then, Cuội came home from the forest with a bundle of firewood on his shoulder and stepped through the gate. Looking into the garden, he was astonished to see the banyan lifting off the ground. Cuội shouted, threw down his firewood, and dashed into the garden.

It was rising, it was rising. Cuội grabbed the biggest root dangling down and yanked hard, trying to pull the tree back to earth. But the tree pulled upward far too strongly. Cuội held on tight, feet braced against the ground, straining with all his strength. He could not pull it down. The tree kept rising, up and up.

And Cuội kept holding on, and on. He held on until it was too late to let go.

The banyan lifted Cuội clean off the ground. His wife ran out below in a panic, calling her husband by name. Cuội looked down and saw the little roof, the corner of the garden, and his wife standing there calling. But his feet no longer touched the earth. The banyan kept rising, higher and higher, past the tops of the bamboo, past the white clouds, on and on into the high sky.

No one knows how long it took, but at last the banyan chose a place to stop. It was on the moon, round and shining.

From then on, the banyan has grown on the moon. And Cuội sits beneath it, looking down on the world of people forever.

On the night of the full moon, the moon is at its brightest and roundest. There is a faint, patchy shadow on its face. People of old called it the shadow of the banyan. And the figure sitting quietly beneath the tree, looking down on the human world, is Cuội.

Cuội is not sad. He is still there, still sitting by his banyan, as peaceful as in the days when he tended it in the corner of his garden. It is only that, ever since, the banyan has stood not on earth but far up high, shining on full moon nights.

So whenever the Mid-Autumn Festival comes and the full moon hangs in the middle of the sky, children carry star lanterns out into the yard. They tilt their heads back and look up, and there is Cuội. There is the shadow of the banyan. There is an old story that the Vietnamese have kept from one generation to the next.

The moon is still round. The banyan is still there. And Cuội still sits quietly, gentle as ever, as if waiting for something very tender, on the bright night of the full moon.