Marble Mountains

Old people in Da Nang still say that the five stone mountains on the shore east of the city were once five pieces of a broken dragon egg.

In those days, an old man rowed down from the northern coast to this empty beach. He built a thatched hut and lived alone, fishing with his nets. One morning, thunder suddenly broke across the sky, and wild waves crashed onto the shore. In the middle of the storm, a giant dragon moved toward the hut. A clap of thunder rang out, and a great egg rolled out from under the dragon's belly. Then the dragon turned back to the sea and vanished.

Slowly the sea grew calm. A large golden turtle swam ashore and dug into the sand to bury the egg. The turtle said it was the spirit Kim Quy. It asked the old man to protect the blood of Long Quân, a sea dragon lord of Vietnamese legend. The spirit gave him a claw. Whenever trouble came, he was to press the claw to his ear, and the spirit would tell him what to do.

One day, a buffalo cart full of fierce men with weapons charged straight toward the place where the egg lay buried. The old man quickly pressed the turtle's claw to his ear, and a voice told him to lie down. The moment he lay down, he turned into a great tiger, and the men fled in terror.

The egg grew bigger and rose out of the sand, its shell glittering like jade. Then one night, the wicked men came back and burned his house. The old man barely had time to pray to Kim Quy for help. When he finished praying, he found himself lying in a wide, cool cave of stone. He stepped to the mouth of the cave and stood still in wonder. All around him rose five stone mountains, green with trees and grass and loud with birdsong. The legend says the shell of the magic egg had broken into five pieces, and the pieces became the five mountains. And out of the egg stepped a lovely little girl, the daughter of Long Quân himself. The old man and the girl lived together as father and daughter, and the birds and animals took turns bringing her fruit to eat.

That is the fireside tale. The rocks tell a different story, and it is just as strange. These five limestone mountains were once islands standing alone in the sea. The plain slowly built up with silt, the shore moved farther out, and the islands were left behind on dry land. Today the sea lies about 800 meters from the foot of Thủy Sơn. The French called them the Marble Mountains, and foreign visitors still know them by that name.

The group stands in Ngũ Hành Sơn ward, about 8 kilometers southeast of central Da Nang and about 20 kilometers from Hoi An. It was once called Bạch Hoa Ngũ Chỉ, which means five fingers. Seen from above, the five mountains look like a giant hand pressing its five fingers into the ground.

In 1825, Emperor Minh Mạng came here. He was the second emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, Vietnam's last royal dynasty. It was he who named each peak after the theory of the five elements: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. The people living nearby used plainer names. Thủy Sơn was the pagoda mountain, and Mộc Sơn was the mountain of the rooster's crest. Thổ Sơn was the mountain of stacked stones, and Kim Sơn was núi Đùng. Hỏa Sơn was núi Ông Chài, the mountain of the old fisherman.

Thủy Sơn holds the most stories. That same year, the emperor had a stone stairway built up the mountain. He gave Tam Thai Pagoda its name and made it a national pagoda. Tam Thai is the oldest pagoda on Ngũ Hành Sơn, and it has stood here for more than 300 years. Nearby, Linh Ứng Pagoda faces out to sea.

The emperor also had the Vọng Hải Đài built, a terrace for watching the sea. From there the eye falls on the sand and the open water. Far off lies the island of Cù Lao Chàm.

The way into Huyền Không Cave passes through Hoa Nghiêm Cave, where the air is fresh and pleasant. Then the heart of the mountain suddenly opens into a high vaulted cave. Its roof has five natural openings that let daylight and fresh air deep inside, so the cave needs no lamps. Standing in the middle of the cave, you can watch the bands of sunlight move slowly with the hours, lighting one part of the wall after another. At the highest point, a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha blends into the color of the rock. Shakyamuni was the founder of Buddhism. Against the right wall, Trang Nghiêm Pagoda, built in 1825, sits snugly inside the cave.

The name Vân Thông Cave means the cave that opens to the clouds. The cave still keeps an old stone stele from the 17th century. Âm Phủ Cave grows darker the deeper you go. People say that Emperor Minh Mạng once sent soldiers with torches down to explore the cavern, and all 12 torches went out. The story goes on to say that the emperor dropped a marked pomelo into the cave. That pomelo floated all the way out to the beach at Non Nước.

Each of the other mountains has a shape of its own. Kim Sơn has Quan Âm Cave, about 50 meters long. Its natural stalactites form a shape like a statue of Quan Âm, the bodhisattva of compassion. Hỏa Sơn is a double mountain. Its two halves are Dương Hỏa Sơn and Âm Hỏa Sơn. They face each other across Trường Sa Street. Linh Sơn Pagoda sits tucked into the mountain. Thổ Sơn is the longest, stretched out like a dragon lying at rest.

At the foot of the mountains lies the Non Nước stone-carving village. A stele at Phổ Khánh Pagoda, carved in 1678, mentions a stonemason from the village of Quán Khái. So stone carving here goes back at least to the 17th century. People say the first carvers came from Thanh Hóa. Hammer in one hand and chisel in the other, they carved qilin, phoenixes, lions and stone nghê for communal houses and pagodas everywhere. The nghê is a mythical guardian animal of Vietnamese temples, pagodas and communal houses. The stone craft of Non Nước is now national intangible cultural heritage. Quarrying on the mountains is now banned, so the carvers bring in stone from elsewhere.

At the end of 2018, the Prime Minister ranked Ngũ Hành Sơn a special national heritage site, the highest rank for a heritage site in Vietnam.

Today, in Huyền Không Cave, sunlight still falls through the five openings in the roof and creeps slowly across the stone walls. At the foot of the mountains, the carvers of Non Nước still shape qilin and nghê from stone brought in from many places. And out beyond, the waves still wash over the sand where, the old people say, the dragon egg once lay.