The Legend of the Francolin

On a summer noon, when sunlight pours gold over the treetops and the whole garden falls still in the heavy heat, a bird calls from deep in a thick clump of bushes. Đa đa. Đa đa. The call is short and full of longing. It rises, falls silent, then rises again, on and on, as if someone were calling from very far away. It is nothing like the bright, tumbling song of other birds. It sounds closer to a small child calling, soft and stirring, and the heart sinks a little to hear it.

People of old explained that call with a folktale, retold from one generation to the next. The tale has no dates and no named places. There is only a father, a child, a bowl of rice, and a call that people still hear today.

Long ago, a woodcutter lived in a small thatched house at the edge of the forest. He made his living cutting firewood. Early each morning he carried his axe up into the forest, and each evening he came home with a load of wood on his shoulder pole. He had a little son, good and gentle, who loved to stay close by his father. Father and son loved each other dearly. Sadly, the boy's mother had died early, when he was still very small. From then on, the thatched house heard no more lullabies, and felt no more of a mother's hands.

Some time later, the father married again. He brought home a stepmother, so that there would be someone to help in the house from morning to night. But the stepmother did not love the boy as her own child. Whenever the father was away in the forest, she was cold to him. She found fault with everything he did, and even his meals were served grudgingly. The boy was still small and had no one to turn to. He simply bore it in silence. He missed his mother and he loved his father, but he did not dare say a word. He was afraid of making his father sad, afraid of bringing harsh words into the house. So he kept that hurt inside him, small and yet so heavy.

Then one noon, something sad happened. That day, the stepmother set a bowl of rice in front of the boy. But the rice was full of sand and grit. It crunched between his teeth, and he could not swallow it. The boy looked at the bowl and felt so hurt that the tears simply spilled out. He sat there crying, unable to eat.

Just then, the father came into the yard with his load of firewood. He was worn out after a whole day in the forest, and dripping with sweat. He saw his son crying beside a bowl of rice that had not been touched, and he did not yet understand what had happened. The stepmother spoke first. She went on and on. The boy was stubborn, she said: he had been given his rice, turned his nose up at it and refused to eat. The father was hot and tired, and when he heard those words, he could not hold back his anger. In a rash moment, without stopping to think, he scolded his son harshly. And then, in that hasty, hot-tempered moment, father and son were parted forever. The little boy's life slipped away, and he could never again come back to his father's side.

This part of the story should be told very softly. It is the saddest part, and also the most tender.

When his anger had passed, the father suddenly came to his senses. He bent down beside his son and understood everything. He looked at the bowl of rice full of sand, still sitting where it had been left. He understood that his son had never turned his nose up at the rice. There was sand in it, and the boy simply could not swallow it. He understood how much his little son had suffered without a single word of complaint. And he understood that he had misjudged his son and lost his temper with him, when the boy had done nothing wrong.

The father felt as if his heart were being torn apart. He was filled with regret. If only he had been a little calmer. If only he had asked his son one simple question. If only he had looked closely at that bowl of rice before he spoke. But all those if onlys had come too late. The father sat there, holding his regret, calling his son by name again and again, and no one answered.

A few days later, the father walked sadly out to visit the small grave of his son beside the forest. He stood there in silence as the tears kept falling. Suddenly, from beside the grave, a bird he had never seen before beat its wings and flew up. It settled on a branch, looked toward the father, and began to call.

The call was strangely full of longing. It was high and sad, drawn out and then cut short, like a child trying to tell his father something. In that call, the father seemed to hear a whole message. The bird spoke again of that bowl of sandy rice, but not to blame him. It spoke of it so that his father would grieve no more. It wanted him to know that his son understood, and was not angry with him at all. It was as if the bird wanted to hand that old bowl of rice back to his father, with all the hurt it held, and leave only love behind.

The father stood very still. He understood that his little son had become that bird. The child's love was too great to fade away, too great to leave his father. It had turned into a pair of wings and a voice, so that he could stay by the forest forever, close to his father, calling to him every day.

In the old tale, the bird's call is a whole long line, and it speaks of that bowl of sandy rice. But the line always ends with two tender sounds. Đa, đa. They are what remains of a child calling his father. It is a call of love, not of resentment.

From then on, people called that bird the đa đa. In English it is known as the Chinese francolin, a wild bird of the pheasant family. Whenever day begins to break, or evening comes down into the mist, the call of the đa đa rings out again among the bushes and the clumps of bamboo. Đa đa. Đa đa. People who hear it for the first time say the bird sounds terribly sad. But those who know the story understand that it is not a sad sound at all. It is the voice of a child who still loves his father, and who only wants his father to stop tormenting himself.

The warmest thing in this story is forgiveness. The son never blamed his father. His love was so great that it became the call of a bird, flying around the forest so that he could stay near his father forever. And the father, though his heart was full of regret, could still hear his son every day. He still knew that his son was somewhere close by, and still loved him. That love never went out. It only changed its shape, and became a pair of small wings and a call that carries on between earth and sky.

On a summer noon, or a quiet evening in the garden, the call of the đa đa drifts up from somewhere in the bushes. It is the voice of a child still calling his father, with all his love.