Tien Pagoda and Tien Well

At noon that day, golden sunlight lay across the mountain slopes of Lạng Sơn, and not one cool breath of wind came. A few children led their buffalo out to look for grass. Their feet crunched on the dry ground. The grass along the path had faded to a tired yellow. The little stream that once babbled there was now only a bed of bare stones.

Lạng Sơn is a mountainous province in the northeast of Vietnam. Its people still tell their children and grandchildren the story of that noon. It happened a very long time ago, in a year of great drought.

That year, the whole region thirsted for water. The Kỳ Cùng River, usually wide and full, sank lower and lower, until its bed was nothing but bare sand. The rice fields cracked into patches. The village of Phja Luông, at the foot of the mountain, had gone many days without a single scoop of clean water. The grown-ups had to walk very far to bring back a little water, and everyone hoped the sky would soon pour down rain.

But the children who herded the buffalo still went out to the fields every day, because the herd still needed grass. At noon they sat down in the shade of a tree and unwrapped the rice they had brought. There was not much of it, only a small handful each. They ate it sparingly, to keep enough strength to drive the buffalo home.

Just then, an old man with a walking stick came along the footpath. He was very old, his back bent, his clothes faded and threadbare. He moved slowly, one step at a time, as weary as if he had walked a very long road under the sun. When he reached the children he stopped, and in a hoarse voice he asked for a little something to eat.

The children looked at one another. Their rice was already scarce, and shared out, each portion would be smaller still. But with the old man standing there, hungry and tired, none of them could bear to eat alone. So they cheerfully invited him to sit down, and each one gave him a little of their own rice. Put together, it made a handful for the old man.

Only one thing troubled the children. They had rice to offer him, but not a single sip of water to help it down. One small child spoke up hesitantly: "We only have rice for you to eat, Grandfather, and nothing at all to give you to drink. The whole village has gone without water for a long time." Then the children lowered their faces, sorry and at a loss, wishing for one bowl of cool water to offer the old man.

The old man smiled at this. He took the handful of rice the children had shared and ate it slowly, his kind eyes resting on each child in turn. When he had finished, he stood up and looked around the parched mountainside. Then he told the children to step back a little and watch.

He walked over to a large slab of stone that lay tilted at the foot of the mountain. He lifted his foot and pressed his heel down onto the rock. It was only a gentle press, nothing more.

Before the children understood what was happening, a stream of crystal-clear water suddenly spurted up from the very spot his heel had touched. The water was cool and fresh, so clear that the bottom showed right through it. It kept gushing out from inside the stone, spilling down into a glittering pool in the noon sun.

The children cried out with joy. They ran over, plunged their hands in, and pressed cupped handfuls of cool water to their faces. Then they drank their first sweet, fresh sips after so many thirsty days. The cold water ran between their fingers, cooling their palms and cooling them right through to their hearts.

When the children looked up to thank him, the old man was gone. Only the clear water remained, still rising quietly from the stone. It was cool and fresh, like a thank-you left behind for kind and generous hearts.

When the villagers heard the news, they came out together to see. Everyone was amazed at the water that had appeared out of nowhere in a year of great drought. From then on, the whole village of Phja Luông had water to use. People told one another that the old man who had come begging for food could not have been an ordinary man. He must have been an immortal. Moved by the gentle children who knew how to share, the immortal had left the villagers a precious spring.

The people of Lạng Sơn call that little well the Tiên Well, the well of the immortal. And the most wondrous thing about it is the shape of its mouth. People say the mouth of the well is the very print of the old immortal's heel, pressed into the stone long ago. The spring flows from deep inside the mountain. Its mouth is only as big as a bowl, yet the water stays clear and cold. Strangest of all, it has never once run dry.

Not far from the well, there is a pagoda hidden inside the rock, in a cave of Đại Tượng Mountain. It is called the Tiên Pagoda. People also know it as Song Tiên Tự. The well and the pagoda keep each other company, close together, through many seasons of rain and sun.

Many years have passed, and the Tiên Well is still there on the hillside, a short walk from the mouth of the pagoda cave. Every year, on the 18th day of the first lunar month, the people of the province come in joyful crowds for the festival of the Tiên Pagoda. Then they stop beside the small mouth of the well to look at the clear water.

The tiny stone well still sits on the hillside near the pagoda. Anyone who bends down close can still see the clear, cold water rising softly from inside the stone, just as it rose on that faraway day. That was the day a few young buffalo herders, who had so little, gladly shared their small handful of rice with an old man passing by.