Lạc Long Quân

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Modern depiction of Lạc Long Quân (center) and Âu Cơ (left) as part of the 2009 Tết festival
Temple of Lạc Long Quân in Phu Thọ Province

Lạc Long Quân (literally “dragon ruler of Lạc”, chữ Hán : 貉 龍 君), personal name Sùng Lãm , is the legendary founder of Vietnam . As the central figure of the Vietnamese myth of origin , he is considered the father and bringer of culture of the Vietnamese people and the country's first real king.

He is the son of Kinh Dương Vương , a descendant of the great emperor Shennong and king of Xích Quỷ ( Lingnan ?), And his wife Thần Long Nữ , the daughter of the dragon ruler of Dongting Lake . As a descendant of dragons, he was characterized by great strength, high intelligence and an affinity for waters. He performed a number of heroic deeds, including battling a fish monster ( Ngư Tinh ), a fox spirit ( Hồ Tinh ) and a tree demon ( Mộc Tinh ).

During a trip to the highlands, he met the fairy and mountain deity Âu Cơ and married her a little later. According to the oldest known version, however, Âu Cơ had already been married to his cousin, the northern (Chinese) ruler Đế Lai . In later versions, however, she is considered his daughter in order to avoid the problematic topics of bride robbery and adultery.

The couple lived on Mount Tản Viên . Soon after the marriage, Âu Cơ gave birth to an egg sac, from whose eggs a hundred children hatched. Depending on the version of the legend, these were either fifty boys and fifty girls or a hundred sons (to explain the origin of the hundred classic Vietnamese family names or, alternatively, the hundred Việt tribes ). In any case, these hundred children are considered to be the first Vietnamese ( Lạc Việt ).

After a while it turned out that the mountain fairy and the descendant of the water dragon were too different to be able to live together in the long term. The couple broke up. Fifty children followed their father to the coast, where they became the ancestors of the lowland Vietnamese. The other fifty children followed their mother into the mountains, where they became the ancestors of the highland Vietnamese (the Mường or possibly the Âu Việt, depending on the interpretation ).

Lạc Long Quân taught the children who had followed him fishing, growing rice, cooking rice in bamboo tubes, and tattooing. He founded the Kingdom of Văn Lang . His eldest son eventually succeeded him and ruled as the first Hùng king ( Hồng Bàng period ).

The main temple of Lạc Long Quân is located on Sim Hill in the province of Phú Thọ , in the immediate vicinity of the temple complex of his successors, the Hùng kings.

literature

The main sources for the legend of Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ are the collection of stories Lĩnh Nam chích quái and the history ( Toàn thư ) of Ngô Sĩ Liên .

  • Nghia M. Vo: Legends of Vietnam: An Analysis and Retelling of 88 Tales , McFarland, 2012, pp. 57–61 (Chapter IX.) And pp. 96–100 (Chapter XII.-1)
  • Keith Weller Taylor: The Birth of Vietnam , University of California Press, 1976, pp. 303-305 (Appendix A)

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