Imaginary interview with Âu Cơ
by Charactorium · Âu Cơ (2825 — 2520) · Mythology · 6 min read
They say that at the foot of the Phong Châu mountains, where mist clings to the peaks like a fairy's breath, a woman still watches. We met her at the entrance to a cave, dressed in white, as the wind carried the voices of children from far away. Âu Cơ, mother of one hundred sons, agreed to speak of what tradition has whispered about her since the beginning.
—How did the one called the Dragon Lord come to you?
I lived secluded in a cave in the Northern mountains, where silence tastes of damp stone. One day the rock began to sing: Lạc Long Quân, lord of the waters, had taken the form of a handsome young man and advanced surrounded by musicians, as if the whole mountain held its breath. Before me a palace rose from nothing, erected in a heartbeat — I had never seen such a dwelling, and yet I felt expected there. We settled at Long Đài, in a light that knew neither ordinary day nor night. The mountain people say I am Tiên, a fairy of the peaks; he came from the depths. Nothing destined us for each other, and perhaps that is why we recognized one another.
Before me a palace rose from nothing, and yet I felt expected there.
—Do you remember the day you carried what would become an entire people?
I did not give birth to one child, nor ten, but a single sack — a bọc trứng containing one hundred eggs. Tradition does not lie when it admits my terror: at first I thought it a bad omen, and I abandoned that sack in a field, my heart heavy with a fear no mother should know. Then, after six or seven days, the shell opened by itself. One hundred boys came out, and they grew without my needing to nurse them — as if heaven and earth took charge of making them men. I understood then that what I had taken for a misfortune was the seed of an entire people. The sack of one hundred eggs, today, is called the symbol of unity of all the Vietnamese.
What I had taken for a misfortune was the seed of an entire people.
—How did you feel watching these one hundred sons grow so fast?
A mother learns to know a child over the seasons; I had one hundred faces to love at once, and no time for slow tenderness. They grew without milk, robust, as if each mountain of the North lent them its strength. I watched them run in the valleys of Phong Châu, and I told myself I was not only their mother but the guardian of a beginning. In the tales still sung, I am also shown traveling the land with herbs, healing the sick — for a fairy does not keep her strength to herself. It is no small thing to carry one hundred destinies: each son was a path, and I already knew that those paths would one day diverge.
I had one hundred faces to love at once, and no time for slow tenderness.
—Why did a couple from whom a people was born end up torn apart?
One does not marry mountain and abyss with impunity. Lạc Long Quân belonged to the Water Kingdom, and he returned there for long stretches, leaving me alone with our sons, my gaze turned toward the North I yearned for. When we met again in the land of Tương, the truth seized us: our natures were irreconcilable, water against height, the cold of springs against the wind of peaks. The old text lends me these words, and I recognize them: “I come from the North, I lived with you and we had one hundred sons, but you abandoned me without raising them.” It was not a reproach of bitterness, but the acknowledgment of two worlds that could not share one roof.
One does not marry mountain and abyss with impunity.
—How did you experience the division of your one hundred sons?
It was the gravest act of my legendary life: dividing in two what I had carried in a single sack. Fifty sons went down to the sea, following their father Lạc Long Quân into the water kingdom; fifty ascended with me to the heights, to Phong Châu. People think a mother breaks when she separates her children — I understood that I was giving them back to the world. The sea needed men, the mountain too; in dividing ourselves, we impoverished nothing, we spread. Even today, when a delta fisherman and a highland mountaineer meet without knowing each other, they are brothers without knowing it. That is what a rift can engender: a kinship vaster than blood.
In dividing ourselves, we impoverished nothing, we spread.
—What does that eldest son who became king represent to you?
My eldest son, who stayed with me at Phong Châu, was enthroned under the name Hùng King, and from him was born the kingdom of Văn Lang, the first that the land of the Vietnamese ever knew. I did not make him king out of ambition; he became so because a people, to hold together, needs a heart and a name. Seeing him take his place at the head of his brothers was seeing the sack of one hundred eggs finally bear its true fruit — not one hundred solitudes, but a lineage. The kings who succeeded him kept that title as one keeps a fire. I am not sure I reigned; but I gave birth to those who would reign, and for a mother of origins, that is crown enough.
Not one hundred solitudes, but a lineage.
—What would you say to those who trace the origin of a nation back to you?
I would tell them to beware of pride and to keep the humility of the source. Văn Lang was but a fragile beginning, a kingdom raised at the foot of the Northern mountains, and yet everything that followed sinks its roots there. The scholars, much later, wanted to write my story down in their great chronicles, as if to anchor a nation in the soil of legend. I have no need of these honors: it is enough for me that a child, tonight, learns that he descends from a fairy and a dragon. An origin is not a title of glory; it is a debt to those who will come. Whoever knows he was born from a shared sack of eggs cannot despise his neighbor.
An origin is not a title of glory; it is a debt to those who will come.
—You are called Tiên, the fairy. How do you bear this supernatural part?
Tiên: that is how one designates the immortal beings of the mountains, and I have been counted among them. Opposite me, Lạc Long Quân was Long, the dragon of the waters. From this impossible union, the people drew a formula they pass down like a password between generations: Con Rồng cháu Tiên, “children of the Dragon and the Fairy.” I did not choose to be a fairy; tradition gave me phoenix wings and, in some tales, a feathered robe to escape danger. What touches me is not being worshipped, but hearing an entire people recognize themselves in a couple that everything opposed. To be a fairy here does not mean to rule the sky: it means never to be quite absent from the living.
Con Rồng cháu Tiên: an entire people recognizes itself in a couple that everything opposed.
—How do you feel knowing that a temple is still dedicated to you?
At Hiền Lương, in Phú Thọ province, stands a temple dedicated to me, the Đền Mẫu Âu Cơ, erected long ago under a distant dynasty and where incense still burns. I am honored there not as a queen, but as a mother — Mẫu, she whose protection is sought. They attribute to me the deeds of a fairy healer, traveling mountains and valleys with herbs to relieve the humble. I do not know if I ever healed anyone; but I know that the need for a watching mother does not fade with centuries. Seeing unknown hands place offerings before my name is to understand that a legend does not die: it only changes generations to keep on loving.
A legend does not die: it changes generations to keep on loving.
—With the hindsight of legend, do you regret that Northern cave where it all began?
The mountain cave, I never truly left. It was my refuge before Lạc Long Quân made his palace appear, and it is toward those heights that I returned after the division of our sons. The mountain is my nature; the water was his. Regret? A fairy does not regret, she remains. I sometimes think back to that palace that appeared by magic, to Long Đài where time did not weigh — a happiness too pure to last, like everything that touches the marvelous. But if I had to live it all again, I would take the sack of one hundred eggs without trembling this time. For I have seen what came out of it: not my story, but that of a people who, even today, call themselves children of the Dragon and the Fairy.
A fairy does not regret, she remains.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Âu Cơ's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.