-^-for posterity-^-

i was recently introduced to a legend that explained the origin of the vietnamese race.

lac long quan was a dragon. he lived up in the mountains. i assume he was a large, scaly dragon that spend most of his time sulking and wondering where he could find companionship. i assume he was green with hints of blue and red. his eyes must have glowed brilliantly even at night. he probably didn’t keep a tidy cave (assuming he lived in a cave, as all dragons do). i’m sure there were bones and random piles of muck sitting around waiting for someone to clean up.

au co was a fairy of some sort. she lived either in the water or near the water. i’m going to assume she lived in the water because that makes it so much more interesting; the contrast between a water dwelling, flawless creature and a cave dwelling, vengeful beast. well, needless to say, she was flawless. her skin must have shone like porcelain or lacquer. her hair would have had to be as straight and smooth as light and smelled slightly of a purple flower. i’m sure she wore long, tight fitting, whitish-opaque dresses that were provocatively tailored. she lived a happy live, i’m sure, but she was constantly befuddled by her lack of companionship. there’s no one perfect enough for a fairy.

the two met one day. i don’t know if the dragon came down from his cave on a lonely walk or if the fairy darted up through a cool mountain pass, but they met. she looked at his power and ferocity and felt that mysterious void inside of her being filled. the void that exists in all of us that can only be filled by that perfect person. he looked at her and saw her sensuality and perfection and grace, everything he wasn’t, and knew that she was perfect for him. their piercing gazes met and they slowly moved towards each other not knowing if the feeling was mutual but soon realizing, no, sensing, that it surely was. no words were exchanged, only sensations, reactions.

the result of that meeting was the production of one hundred eggs. i assume each of these eggs was the relative size and shape of a human fetus. i don’t know if thee eggs were stored in the dragon or if they were somehow attached to the fairy. i had imagined the fairy to be a small, delicate creature, no someone large enough to house one hundred human sized eggs. i assumed the dragon was large enough but that would be also be odd due to his maleness. somehow the eggs were incubated and cared for. the details of which my imagination is incapable of creating.

the eggs hatched into one hundred males. well, some people tell me that they hatched into fifty males and fifty females. in either case, they were the origins of the vietnamese race. fifty of these newly created creatures went up with the dragon to the mountain (i’m sure he had to do a bit of cleaning) and fifty went to the sea with the fairy. one version of the story says that twenty five boys and twenty five girls went to the mountains and twenty five girls and twenty five boys went to the sea. the other version makes them all male.

now the dragon and the fairy had a bit more responsibility on their hands. did they want the children or were they a product of fleeting emotions? whatever the case, the children were they are had to be taken care of. they were raised and eventually copulated. in the version with the one hundred males, there is an obvious problem here. i was told that the males ‘borrowed’ chinese women.

from those one hundred children the vietnamese race was born. that is the legend, as i understand it, of lac long quan and au co.