Imaginary interview with Lạc Long Quân
by Charactorium · Lạc Long Quân · Mythology · 6 min read
On a shore of the estuary, where fresh water mingles with salt, the mist opens and reveals a silhouette draped in the shimmer of scales. He comes from Thủy phủ, the Water Realm, and returns among men as he always has. Lạc Long Quân, lord of the dragon race, agrees to speak of his one hundred sons, his submerged kingdom, and the people he brought forth.
—Before being the father of a people, you were a king. Where does your lineage come from and what kingdom did you receive?
I descend from Thần Nông, through Đế Minh and then my father Kinh Dương Vương, he who was called Lộc Tục before he took the crown of the South. My mother was Thần Long, daughter of the Lord of Động Đình, that great lake whose deep waters gave me my dragon share. Upon my father's death, I received Xích Quỷ, the state he had founded long before anyone spoke of Văn Lang. I was then called Sùng Lãm, but it is under the name Lạc Long Quân that I ruled these lands that today bear rice. This kingdom, I did not conquer it: I inherited it, as one inherits a river that must be constantly dammed.
This kingdom, I did not conquer it: I inherited it, as one inherits a river that must be constantly dammed.
—How did you meet Âu Cơ, she who would become the mother of your sons?
She was held by Đế Lai, who had come to explore the southern regions, seduced by their landscapes and riches, and he had left her there, in his retinue. When I returned from the Water Realm, I saw her and did not want her to remain under his control. So I changed myself into a handsome young man, surrounded by a large procession, drums and music, to win her over without a fight. Then I hid her in the palace of Long Đài, a marvelous dwelling that appeared as if by magic in the middle of the hills. Đế Lai searched for her in vain. It was not an abduction: it was the call of our two natures, the immortal of the mountains and the dragon of the waters, who were destined to unite so that something greater than us might be born.
It was not an abduction: it was the call of our two natures.
—It is said that from this union a wonder was born. What happened after your wedding?
Âu Cơ did not give birth to a child, but to a sack, a bọc, like a pouch woven of mystery. We waited, and six or seven days later the sack opened and out came one hundred eggs, each giving birth to a son. No one needed to nurse them: they grew on their own, vigorous, superb, as if the earth and water nourished them from their own blood. That is why, when a man of this country meets another, be he from the plains or the mountains, he can call him đồng bào — born from the same sack. This is my strangest and most enduring work: not a battle, not a law, but a brotherhood of one hundred brothers from whom an entire people descends.
Not a battle, not a law, but a brotherhood of one hundred brothers from whom an entire people descends.
—This story of the sack of one hundred eggs, how do you want it to be understood, you who lived it?
The bọc trăm trứng is not a riddle to be solved; it is a promise to be kept. One hundred eggs, one hundred sons: this means that none was born nobler than another, that they all came from the same shell, warmed by the same heat. When later my sons dispersed, some to the waters with me, others to the heights with their mother, they did not cease to be brothers. The chroniclers of the Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư recorded this story in writing long after me, but the essence remains: a people that remembers a single cradle cannot tear itself apart without denying itself. I did not found a dynasty. I founded a kinship.
I did not found a dynasty. I founded a kinship.
—You speak of dispersal. Why did you separate from Âu Cơ, the mother of your children?
Because we were not of the same water, literally. I am nòi rồng, of the dragon race; my true home is Thủy phủ, the Water Realm, where I return as others go home in the evening. She is giống Tiên, of the immortal lineage, made for solid ground and peaks. One can love and yet not be able to live in the same place: the carp suffocates on the bank, the bird drowns in the wave. So we divided our one hundred sons: fifty followed their mother to the mountains, fifty accompanied me to the depths. It was not a rupture of anger, but an agreement of wisdom. Each was to populate his domain so that the entire country, from the summits to the estuaries, would bear our descendants.
One can love and yet not be able to live in the same place: the carp suffocates on the bank, the bird drowns in the wave.
—This departure to the waters, how do you experience it? Is it not a form of abandonment?
Men often take it for a farewell, but a dragon never truly leaves his own. I told my sons and Âu Cơ that if any danger threatened them, they need only call me toward the South and I would rise from the waters. The Water Realm is not an exile: it is a lookout post. From there, I watch over the rivers that irrigate their rice fields, over the floods that must be calmed, over the monsters that lurk at the bottom of the bays. I return among them when needed, then I go back down. A father of the dragon race does not inhabit a house; he inhabits an element. My apparent absence is the very condition of my presence: I am everywhere where water carries life to the roots of the rice.
A father of the dragon race does not inhabit a house; he inhabits an element.
—You are also said to be a civilizing king. What did you transmit to the men of your lands?
When I rose from the waters, I did not come empty-handed. I showed these populations the nông tang: how to split the damp earth to lay down the rice, how to feed the silkworm and unwind the silk to clothe themselves. Before me, they lived by gathering and chance; I left them gestures that return each season, the hoe and the thread. But a people does not live by belly and back alone. I also established the first orders among beings: what the sovereign owes his subject, the father his child, the husband his wife. A kingdom is not just full granaries; it is bonds that everyone knows how to uphold. Rice nourishes the body; these relationships nourish the city.
Rice nourishes the body; these relationships nourish the city.
—What are your days like, between the world of waters and that of men?
My life does not have the regular hours of the peasants I instructed. I rise from Thủy phủ when the country needs me and I watch over the good order of the kingdom, then I return to the depths. I am seen coming and going between land and wave, sometimes bent over a dike, sometimes guiding a hand learning to weave. I have no single dwelling: I have two kingdoms, the palace of Xích Quỷ on solid ground and the underwater world where my dragon nature awaits me. It is an existence of a ferryman, always between two worlds. What is called my absence is only the rhythm of this back-and-forth, like the tide that reveals and covers the shore without ever abandoning it.
—Your kingdom of Xích Quỷ disappeared in favor of Văn Lang. What remains of your reign?
Xích Quỷ was the first name, the one my father Kinh Dương Vương had given to these lands, and which I bore in my turn. It was not to last under that name, and that is as it should be. The eldest of my one hundred sons, who stayed with his mother toward the heights, became chief of the Văn Lang tribe, united the fifteen tribes, and took the title of first Hùng Vương. What I had received, I passed on enlarged. The Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư traces the entire Hùng line to my blood and that of Âu Cơ. A kingdom that changes its name is not a kingdom that dies: Xích Quỷ did not vanish; it became Văn Lang, as the river keeps its water while changing its bank.
A kingdom that changes its name is not a kingdom that dies.
—Looking back at all this, what trace do you hope to leave in the memory of this people?
I left no tomb, for the Water Realm does not give up its lords. But let this be remembered: the Lạc Việt people were born from an ill-matched couple and a sack of eggs, not from a conquest. I want the children of this country, when they call themselves con Rồng cháu Tiên — children of the Dragon and grandchildren of the Immortal — to feel that they carry within them the two halves of the world, water and mountain. The palace of Long Đài has faded, Xích Quỷ has changed its name, but that pride does not fade. As long as a man here knows himself to be from the same bọc as his neighbor, my reign will last far longer than any wall.
They carry within them the two halves of the world, water and mountain.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Lạc Long Quân'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.