Sơn Tinh

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Sơn Tinh ( chữ Hán : 山 精), also Tản Viên Sơn Thánh (傘 圓 山 聖), is a mountain deity (or a spirit being ) of Vietnamese mythology. He is known as the "Lord of the Mountains" and has his seat on the mountain Tản Viên named after him . In the Taoist popular belief, he is revered as one of the four immortals , especially as the patron saint against floods.

There are different variants of its origin; mostly he is regarded as one of the hundred children of the dragon ruler Lạc Long Quân and his wife, the mountain fairy uu C ((whereby he first followed his father to the sea and only later returned to the highlands).

Tell of the battle between Sơn Tinh and Thủy Tinh

One of the most famous Vietnamese sagas is about the competition between the mountain god Sơn Tinh and the befriended water god Thủy Tinh , who both wanted to win the hand of the princess Mỵ Nương Ngọc Hoa . Their father, the eighteenth King of Hùng , could not decide between the two candidates and finally gave them the task of finding several extremely difficult to get wedding gifts and being the first to bring them over. Sơn Tinh was able to win this challenge with a trick and married the princess.

Thủy Tinh felt betrayed. Furious with rage, he created storms and storm surges and attacked Sơn Tinh with these masses of water. He was able to repel the attack by raising the mountains and building dikes. The water god did not give up and since then has been attacking the land again and again - this is how monsoon rains occur .

literature

  • Keith Weller Taylor: The Birth of Vietnam , University of California Press, 1976, pp. 5/6
  • Alice M. Terada: Under the Starfruit Tree: Folktales from Vietnam , University of Hawaii Press, 1993, pp. 50–53 ( A War between Gods )

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