Mount Hong Linh

People of the Nghệ region have a saying: "Mount Hồng and the Lam River." It is how they name home. The Hồng Lĩnh range does not tower like the great peaks of the northwest. It is not famous for its caves, as Phong Nha is. Its place in the hearts of the people of Hà Tĩnh is of another kind. They see it every day. It holds a crowd of pagodas and temples. And it stands as a cultural symbol for a whole land.

The Hà Tĩnh tourism portal describes the range as covering about 30 square kilometers. It spreads across four areas of Hà Tĩnh. Two are Nghi Xuân and Can Lộc. The other two are Lộc Hà and Hồng Lĩnh. The highest peak reaches about 678 meters. Many peaks have names of their own. Thiên Tượng and Ngũ Mã are two. Sư Tử and Hàm Rồng are two more. Hương Tích and Lập Phong are others, and there are many more besides.

People often say that the range has 99 peaks, and Vietnam's national tourism authority introduces it the same way. But the cultural researcher Võ Hồng Huy told the Hà Tĩnh newspaper plainly that the number 99 is a figure of tradition. It belongs to legend more than to measurement. It shows how ordinary people loved their mountain, and it is not a count of every summit.

The Hồng Lĩnh area is rich in legend. Folk tradition says that Ông Đùng, also called the Giant, scooped up earth and stone. The earth and stone came from the country of the Lam River and the La River. He piled it up to make the Hồng Lĩnh range. There are also stories of Việt Thường and Kinh Dương Vương tied to this mountain. These are legends, not geology and not recorded history. Still, they make Hồng Lĩnh more beautiful and deeper in the imagination of the Nghệ people, generation after generation.

What can be checked is more worth telling. Hồng Lĩnh is one of the mountain areas with the highest density of pagodas, temples and shrines in central Vietnam. The national tourism authority records about 100 pagodas, temples and shrines here. Among them are names familiar to pilgrims. Hương Tích Pagoda and Chân Tiên Pagoda are two. Thiên Tượng Pagoda and Long Đàm Pagoda are two more, and so is Chùa Hang.

The Hà Tĩnh newspaper adds other sites. One is the Đại Hùng historical and cultural site. Another is the temple of the censor Bùi Cầm Hổ. Cả Temple honors Quan Hoàng Mười. Bình Lạng Temple honors Uy Minh Vương Lý Nhật Quang.

A walk around Hồng Lĩnh is therefore a way of reading in layers. There is the layer of landscape, mountain and forest. There is the layer of belief, from hundreds of years of people coming to worship. And there is the layer of history, in the figures tied to each temple.

Hồng Lĩnh is also the gateway to a wider region of heritage. Around the foot of the mountain lie Hương Tích Pagoda and Thiên Tượng Pagoda. The Tiên Spring is there too. So are Chợ Củi Temple and the memorial site of the great poet Nguyễn Du. There is Cổ Đạm, a village of ca trù, a form of sung poetry from the north of Vietnam. And there is the beach at Xuân Thành. Nghi Xuân and Hồng Lĩnh belong together as one body of cultural heritage in the lower Lam River.

Hồng Lĩnh is not a place to see in an hour and leave. It has been familiar to the people of Hà Tĩnh for ages. Every slope is a story, and every pagoda roof marks the footsteps of generations who came to pray and rested in the cool of the forest. At the foot of the range, trees cover the slopes, and a bell sounds from a pagoda hidden in the leaves. The people of the Nghệ region keep the words "Mount Hồng" in their hearts as they keep the name of home.