The Snake Youth

A hand reaches down toward the water, so close that the slightest stretch would touch a fish on the back, and then it gently draws back. In a small stream at the foot of Trường Sinh Mountain, fish swim thick along the bank, one pressed against the next, gliding right beneath the hands of the people watching. And yet, strangely, nobody catches a single one. Old people come to carry water, children come to play, and travelers from far away stop to look. Each of them lets the fish play right beside their hands, and not one hand reaches into the water.

There is a reason for this. The Mường people of Cẩm Lương have a story they tell their children and grandchildren whenever they sit by the fire, looking out at the stream. Their home lies in Thanh Hóa. The Mường are an ethnic group of northern Vietnam whose language is closely related to Vietnamese. The story is so old that nobody remembers which generation it began in. People only know that it has been told again and again, from grandparents to parents, and on to the children of today.

The story goes that long, long ago, at the foot of Trường Sinh Mountain, there lived an old Mường couple who still had no child. They were poor, and they lived quietly at the far end of the village. One year, a drought suddenly fell on the whole land below the mountain. The sun burned hard, the stream slowly dried up, and the fields and hillside plots cracked open. The rice and corn grew stunted, and the villagers looked at each other in worry. They had no idea where they would find water to plant and plow, or what they would live on through the season.

One day, the old woman went down to a creek to feel for crabs and snails, hoping to find a little something for supper. As she groped through the shallow water, her hand touched something round and smooth. She picked it up. It was a strange egg, perfectly round and quite unlike any egg she had ever seen. Puzzled, she set it back in the water and moved on to search somewhere else. But oddly enough, after a while her hand touched that very same egg again. Once more she put it down and went farther off. Then, the third time, the egg still came to rest right in her palm, as if it had found its own way back to her.

The old woman thought it must be a gift from heaven. So she carried the egg home with care and showed her husband. The two of them studied it for a long time, but they could not tell what creature it came from. The old man lined a warm nest with straw and set the egg inside. He kept it warm, the way people keep chicken eggs and duck eggs warm. Then the old couple waited.

One morning a few days later, there was a soft knocking inside the straw nest. The egg trembled a little, then cracked open. Out of it came not a chick, but a tiny snake with a soft body and bright black eyes that looked up at the old couple. At first the old woman was a little startled. But the small snake gazed up like a baby searching for its mother's warmth, and her heart softened. The couple had no children, and now heaven had sent a living creature to find them. So they decided to raise it. They gave it a loving name, chàng Rắn, which means the Snake Youth, and treated it as the child who had come to them late in life.

The Snake Youth grew up in that little house. He was gentle and stayed close to the old couple, the way a child clings to its parents. And then something strange began. From the day the Snake Youth came into the house, the parched land began to change. The springs deep inside Trường Sinh Mountain began to seep again, and the stream that had run dry was soon murmuring once more. Wherever the water reached, the fields and hillside plots turned green again. The rice came into ear, the corn set its cobs, and the fields of the whole village flourished. Every Mường in the village was glad. They told one another that the old couple were greatly blessed, for their precious child had brought good water back to the whole community.

But the peace did not last, and disaster came. The village elders say that a water monster rose up out of the deep waters at the foot of the mountain. It wanted to seize the community's spring and plunge the whole village back into the dry days of old. The stream suddenly churned up thick and muddy, and the frightened villagers huddled together.

By then the Snake Youth had grown up. Seeing the whole community in danger, he said goodbye to the old couple and slid down into the water to block the monster's path. No one saw the struggle beneath the stream with their own eyes. People say only that the water roared for days and nights, then slowly, slowly grew still. When the surface turned clear and blue again, the water monster troubled them no more. And the community's spring was kept safe.

From then on, people no longer saw the Snake Youth slithering home to the little house at the end of the village. But the Mường believe that he never truly left. They say he became the guardian spirit of the community. He stayed inside Trường Sinh Mountain, watching over the spring and protecting the villagers forever. To remember and thank him, the villagers built a small temple right beside the stream. The stream is called the Ngọc stream, and incense burns at the temple all year round.

As for the fish, the Mường of Cẩm Lương say that the crowded shoals in the stream are the guards of the Snake Youth. Day and night they gather before the temple to attend him, keeping the water peaceful for the community in his place. That is why the fish stay in that stretch of the stream and rarely swim far, and even in the high-water seasons they seldom leave it. It is as if they know this is their place and their task.

That belief has become a quiet promise between the Mường and the stream. For many generations, no one in the village has caught the fish or harmed a single one. The fish swim by people's feet, calm and unafraid, because no one here would reach down to hurt them. The villagers cherish the fish as a treasure of the community. They still remind one another, and remind travelers from far away too, to look at the fish as long as they like but never to touch them.

The Mường believe the Snake Youth is still there, inside the mountain, in the spring, and in every fish gliding through the clear water. Thanks to that gentle belief, through so many generations, the small stream at the foot of Trường Sinh Mountain has stayed crystal clear. The fish are still many and lively, and their numbers have never dwindled.

Anyone who stands beside that clear stream in Cẩm Lương and watches the fish swim right beneath their hand understands why no one reaches out to catch them. To the Mường here, every fish that glides past is a small soldier of the Snake Youth, quietly guarding the good water for the whole community.