Kinh Duong Vuong

Vietnamese legend says the first king was Kinh Dương Vương. When he was born, heaven and earth were still new. The mountains had only just risen, the rivers had only just begun to flow, and the forests had only just turned green.

This is a tale from the old books, not a biography set down in history. It is a story that grandparents handed down from one generation to the next. An old book, the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư, wrote down this lovely tale in its section on the Hồng Bàng clan. That book is the oldest complete official history of Vietnam that survives. The old tellers say that Kinh Dương Vương was the king who began a very long line of the Vietnamese people.

In the telling, a small child puts a tiny hand into the broad, warm hand of the king, and the two set off together. They walk past mountains still holding the morning dew. They wade through clear streams and cross fields where the wind blows very softly. The king walks slowly, so that small feet can keep up.

As they walk, the king tells the child his story. According to the legend, his father was Đế Minh. His family came from the very ancient line of Thần Nông, the god who taught people to farm in the old days. So his family began far away, very far away, in an old story.

The child looks up and asks whether the king lived all alone among these wide mountains and rivers. The king smiles gently. The legend says he met a kind maiden named Thần Long, whom people also call Long Nữ. She was the daughter of the king of Lake Động Đình, a lake of endless waves. The two loved each other and made a home together. One came from the land of mountains, the other from the country of the lake, and they met when the world was still new.

Then the king stops beside a stream and sits down so that the child can rest. He tells the loveliest part. He and Long Nữ had a son. The son grew up and took over from his father. He is Lạc Long Quân, the dragon father in the tale of the children of the Dragon and the Fairy.

The child cries out with joy, because grandmother has told the tale of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ, and the sac of a hundred eggs. The king nods, his eyes bright. "That is right, child," he says. Lạc Long Quân married Âu Cơ, and she gave birth to a sac of eggs that hatched into one hundred children. The eldest son began the line of the Hùng Kings, whom Vietnamese people honor as their ancestors. He also founded the country of Văn Lang. So, in the old legends, Kinh Dương Vương is the grandfather of the Hùng Kings.

The child counts quietly. First the king, then Lạc Long Quân, then the Hùng Kings. A family line, one generation after another, so long and so unbroken. The king strokes the child's head. In the early days, when he first became king, his country had a very old name in the legend, Xích Quỷ. Only much later, in the time of his descendants the Hùng Kings, did the country take the name Văn Lang, the dear name people still speak today.

Evening comes. The king points to the far horizon, where the mountains and the river run together. He tells the child one last thing. Their family began when heaven and earth were still new. It passed on through Lạc Long Quân, through the Hùng Kings, through countless generations, and it flows all the way down to the child of today.

People say that, to remember the first king, the people of old set up a place to honor him. Today, a tomb of Kinh Dương Vương stands in Bắc Ninh province. It lies in Á Lữ hamlet, in the commune of Đại Đồng Thành. The legend regards it as his resting place. Every year, people still come back to light a fragrant stick of incense and remember the one who began a long line.

On a windswept field, or beside a quiet river, one might still hear the footsteps of that very old king in the telling. He leads a child across the mountains and the rivers, and he tells of the long line that began when heaven and earth were still new. At the far end of the story stands a distant grandchild, one more link in that line.