Ngũ Xã Island – Part 3

Part 3: The Monk’s Copper and the Emperor’s Golden Calf

“When the golden calf heard the sound of the Thăng Long bell, it thought it had heard its mother’s bell. So, it followed the sound of the bell back to Thăng Long to look for its mother.”

Because the Emperor was so grateful to the monk for curing him of his disease, the Emperor told the monk Nguyễn Minh Không that he could choose the contents of one of his storerooms and take them back to Vietnam. The monk chose the copper/bronze storeroom and returned to Thăng Long with a great deal of copper/bronze from the Emperor of China.

To celebrate this great success, the King of Vietnam requisitioned a huge bell. While he had been in China, the monk Nguyễn Minh Không had learned how to cast bronze from copper, so he taught it to the artisans of Vietnam, and together they cast a huge bell from the copper/bronze the monk had brought back from China. So, it is said, bronze casting came to Vietnam, and the monk Nguyễn Minh Không came to be known as the patron of bronze casting in Vietnam.

After the craftsmen cast the large bronze bell for Thăng Long, the bell was rung. The sound of the bell rang so strong and clear that it reached the capital of China. There, the emperor had a golden calf. When the golden calf heard the sound of the Thăng Long bell, it thought it had heard its mother’s bell. So, it followed the sound of the bell back to Thăng Long to look for its mother. The calf searched for its mother for nine years, going round and round in circles looking and looking for its mother in front of Thăng Long Citadel. As it circled in front of the citadel, it created a great depression in the ground in front of the citadel. The next time it rained, the depression filled and thus was created West Lake!

You are surely now going to say, “But Uncle Roman, you just told us that it was the Red River moving that created West Lake!” Who knows what the real truth is!

Read the other two parts of Roman about Ngũ Xã Island, click on the links below:

Ngũ Xã Island – Part 1

Ngũ Xã Island – Part 2