The Magic Water Jar

Early one morning, with dew still on the grass along the path, a young farmer shouldered his ax and went into the forest to cut firewood. The forest was quiet, with only scattered birdsong and the wind in the leaves. He was hard at work splitting wood when he heard a pitiful cry. Looking up, he saw a big crow darting its beak and claws at a little sparrow, whose wings were failing from exhaustion.

He did not stop to think. He threw stones and shouted until the crow flew off. The sparrow landed on the ground, trembling, and looked at him with jet-black eyes. Little by little it grew stronger, flapped its wings, and flew off deep into the forest.

The story begins as simply as that, with an act of kindness that asked for nothing in return. But as grandparents in Vietnam have long said, in a folktale a kind act is never lost.

That afternoon, as he rested under a tree, the sparrow flew back with something small in its beak. It set it down gently in front of him and flew away. He picked it up. It was a little jar with a tight stopper, full of perfectly clear water.

Back home, he put the jar up on a rafter and forgot all about it. The fields kept him busy every day, and the little jar gathered dust, season after season.

A few years later, he married a woman from his village, thin and callused from working the fields year round. It was an ordinary farming marriage, two pairs of hands building one home together.

One day, while cleaning the house, the wife spotted the little jar on the rafter. Taking it for some forgotten hair wash, she lifted it down, pulled out the stopper, and poured the water all over her hair. It ran cool down the back of her neck, with a faint, unfamiliar scent. She used up the whole jar, then went out to the well to rinse her hair. Looking down at the water, she no longer recognized her own face.

She stared, wide-eyed, not understanding why. She only knew that when she stepped away from the well, her callused hands had turned smooth, and the afternoon sun fell on her face as if on a flower she had never known the name of. She had become a true beauty, with glossy hair, so lovely that she could not believe her own eyes.

As she rinsed, the magic water ran off into the onion beds beside the well. The onions shot up to a wondrous size, with bulbs as big as clay pots and stalks as long as a shoulder pole.

Her husband looked at his wife, and his heart was stirred. He hired a painter to paint her portrait, so that he could take it to the fields and gaze at it whenever he sat down to rest.

But the crow from long ago, the one the farmer had chased away from its prey, still bore a grudge. Circling over the fields, the black crow spotted the portrait hanging on a stake at the edge of the field, swooped down, snatched it, and flew straight toward the capital.

The painting fell into the middle of the royal courtyard. The king saw it and stood very still. Then he sent soldiers everywhere to find the beauty in the picture.

The king's soldiers found her and carried her off to the palace, leaving her husband behind in an empty house. In the palace, she would neither laugh nor speak. The king offered her the rarest delicacies, and she did not eat. He had singers and dancers perform, and she did not look. She sat like a statue, her eyes turned toward the horizon, where her poor husband missed her day after day.

At a loss, the king offered a great reward to anyone who could make her laugh, even once.

Meanwhile, the husband quietly carried his giant onions on a shoulder pole to the capital. He had nothing but his voice and his onions, yet he believed she would know him. Walking around the palace, he called out his wares long and loud, in the very voice she had known for so many years. The cry carried over the palace walls, through room after room, to the very place where she sat.

She gave a start. That cry was her husband's voice, beyond any doubt. It was the voice of the man who had lived beside her through so many rice harvests, so many early mornings in the fields, so many plain meals. Her lips trembled. Then she laughed, her first laugh after so many days of silence.

The king was overjoyed to see her laugh. Thinking the wondrous onions must be what made people laugh, he swapped clothes with the onion seller. Dressed as a commoner, he went out into the palace courtyard and started calling out loudly. But the palace dogs did not recognize their master in those strange clothes. They rushed at him. The king had no time to run.

The husband was now wearing the royal dragon robe the king had just traded him. He went into the palace to look for his wife, hands shaking, not knowing the way, and stepped into the main hall. The courtiers looked at one another, then bowed their heads. His wife came out from the inner palace and looked at her husband, and her eyes lit up. The two of them looked at each other without a word. Nothing more needed to be said.

From then on, the two of them lived in the royal palace in peace and happiness.

The tale of the magic water jar belongs to a wife who would not laugh for the man who took her away. It belongs as well to a husband, a poor farmer, who dared to carry his onions across the capital just to call his wife with a familiar cry. An old cry carried over the palace walls, and one laugh broke out after so many days of silence.