Vietnamese Tales - The Silkworm

[swanchika]

Okay, it is set in China, but it was still in the Vietnamese tales collection.

 In the Chinese province of Gian-Bông, there once lived an old trinkets merchant who had a kind and attractive daughter. His trade forced him to travel all year long in the whole province, and he could only see her during spring and autumn.

The young woman stayed at home with her old nanny ; because the nanny was somewhat simple-minded, she had no one to talk to and got very bored. Every day, after spinning and weaving silk, she went to the door, leaned against a bamboo bush and looked at the river...

One day, as she was sighing with boredom, she heard the dry leaves rustle. She ran outside, but she only saw her father's white horse, who was grazing peacefully. She playfully petted the animal's head and said : "My dear horse, if you know where my father is and you bring him back here, I will take you as my husband."

Who could have imagined that the horse would understand ? But he reared up and galloped away. He crossed vast forests, climbed high mountains, for whole nights and days without ever resting. Finally, one night where the snow was falling so thick that even the horizon was white, he reached an inn at the foot of a mountain. He stopped there and neighed thrice. A lone traveller, who was busy heating and drinking wine, suddenly paled and dropped his bowl ; it was the young woman's father. Upon hearing this familiar whinny, he thought something had happened at his home, and he ran out of the inn. The white horse reared up, and the snowflakes that had accumulated on his back flew off like so many twinkling stars. He was swishing his tail happily...

Having entrusted the innkeeper with his luggage, the merchant jumped on the horse's back and the animal started galloping back. The smart creature found his way home without hesitation, jumped over the fence and only stopped when he triumphantly reached the courtyard. The young daughter ran towards her father and hugged him affectionately. But in her joy, she forgot her promise to the horse.

From this day, the white horse refused to eat, and fell ill. Day and night, he stayed in the stables ; every time the young woman came near him, he neighed sadly, but she passed and walked away without noticing it... The horse then let himself fall to the ground ; his breath became ragged, as if he were about to die.

Intrigued by this phenomenon, the merchant asked his daughter. She then remembered the promise, and without giving much thought to it, she told her father about it. The old man started fearing that the horse would attack his daughter during his absence. He mercilessly took his bow and shot a poisoned arrow right in his horse's eye. The animal screamed in pain and it took him three days and three nights of sufferings to die.

The old merchant skinned him and left the skin to dry on the hedge. He then prepared to leave, promising his daughter that he would be back in time for the Têt celebrations, and advising her to dry the horse's skin carefully so that he could make a saddle with it upon returning.

Shortly after he left, the wind started to blow hard. The young woman immediately ran to the courtyard to put the wheat away, then to the hedge, to take the horse's skin. But this extra work exasperated her, and she threw the hide to the ground, trampling it and saying : "This useless skin is just bothering me ! I wish I could dump it in the river !" No sooner had she uttered the words that the hide rose, wrapped itself around the young woman and flew away with her inside. After having whirled around for a moment, it fell and attached itself to a mulberry branch, where it turned into a cocoon ; inside, the young woman had turned into a silkworm.

From this day, thousands of years ago, the silkworm exhausts itself to build the cocoon where it spends its whole life...

Because of this legend, in the Chinese Tê-Xuyên province, the silkworm is called Mâ-Dâu-Nuong, which means "horse-headed woman".