The Crows Build a Bridge

In the seventh lunar month, a fine rain often falls. It is a small rain that lasts all day, wetting the roofs and glistening on the banana leaves. On those rainy days, anyone who looks closely will notice something strange. On the rooftops and the washing lines, a few black crows sit huddled. Every one of them looks ragged and soaked. Strangest of all are their heads. Some of the crows have bald, smooth heads, a sight that tugs at the heart.

It is a puzzle. The elders have always said that crows tend to go bald like this in the seventh month, and the old folk had a story to explain why.

Long, long ago, the story goes, a pale band of light stretched across the night sky. It was called Ngân Hà, the Milky Way. It was a river made of stars, vast and wide. On one bank of the star river lived a gentle young man named Ngưu Lang, who herded buffalo and plowed the fields every day. On the other bank lived a tender fairy named Chức Nữ. She sat at her loom and wove soft, shimmering silk in many colors, like clouds at sunset.

The two loved each other dearly. But the star river was far too wide, and there was not a single bridge between its banks. From one side, the other looked very far away. They could not call loudly enough to be heard, and they could not cross. By the rule of Heaven, they could meet only once a year, on one single night. That was the seventh night of the seventh lunar month.

But with no bridge between the banks, meeting was another matter. The river stretched on and on, and neither of them had wings. Each year as that day drew near, the two grew sad. They stood gazing at each other across the star river, with no idea how to reach each other.

Then one kind of bird heard about their trouble. It was the crow. Crows have never been handsome birds. Their feathers are black and their voices are hoarse, and no one ever praises a crow. Wherever crows go, people call them ugly. Yet that much-mocked bird turned out to have the kindest heart of all.

The crows talked it over among themselves. "What a shame," they said, "that two people in the sky love each other and have no bridge to meet on. Let us fly up and lend our shoulders to make a bridge for them." No sooner said than done. On the seventh night of the seventh month, a great dense flock of crows beat their wings and flew up, higher and higher, all the way to the bank of the star river.

Then one by one, the crows settled close together. Wing joined wing. They stood tight and firm with their heads bowed, forming a long road across the river. Their backs pressed together to make the deck of the bridge. Their heads huddled close to hold one another up. It was a whole living bridge, glossy black, laid across the glittering river of stars. People call it the Ô Thước Bridge, the bridge the crows built.

On that warm bridge of crows, Ngưu Lang crossed from one side and Chức Nữ from the other, and the two met at last. A whole long year apart was gathered into a single night. They sat side by side and told each other everything, happy and tearful at once. Beneath them, the crows quietly kept their shoulders together. They held the bridge steady so the couple could have one whole night together.

But every night must end. As soon as the sky began to pale, the two had to part, each back to their own bank, promising to meet again the next year. At parting, neither could bear to let go, and their eyes brimmed with tears. Those tears of longing fell from high in the sky all the way down to earth and turned into small drops of rain. The rain fell softly for days on end, never loud, just enough to dampen the shoulders of a shirt. People in Vietnam call these long rains of the seventh month mưa ngâu.

As for the crows, they had spent the whole night as a bridge, shoulder to shoulder, heads pressed together to hold each other up. Little by little, the feathers on every crow's head wore away, and by morning they were gone. It was not from pain. It was because the crows had given all their strength to that good deed. The bald head of a crow, it turns out, is the mark of a kind heart.

So it goes, year after year. Each seventh month, the crows gather and fly up once more. They lend their shoulders to the bridge again and press their heads together again, so the two in the sky can meet one more time. That is why, every year at the end of the seventh month, the crows' heads are bald and ragged. They have just finished something truly beautiful.

So whenever the seventh month comes back and the mưa ngâu drizzles down, a black crow may be perched on a roof or a washing line, its head bald and wet. Perhaps, on that seventh night just past, this very crow flew all the way up to the sky. Perhaps it lent its small head to one span of the bridge, so that a husband and wife who live far apart could sit side by side once more.