Every year, as the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the school is always busy planning for the festival. Teachers begin telling the legend of the Mid-Autumn Festival for children, making lanterns with the kids, preparing a five-fruit tray to decorate the classroom and put on performances. On the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, children also get to play with lion dance troupes, eat candies and mooncakes, and gather together under the bright moonlight.
When does the Mid-Autumn Festival take place and what is it for?
Because it occurs on the full moon night of the eighth lunar month (in autumn), this festival is most often called the Mid-Autumn Festival by Vietnamese people. Besides the general name Trung Thu, people also call this festival by names such as: Moon-Gazing Festival, Reunion Festival, and Children’s Festival. On this day, children can buy moon lanterns, star lanterns, or animal-shaped lanterns, and eat various kinds of soft cakes and baked mooncakes. Adults usually use this occasion to visit family and reunite with grandparents and parents.
The Legend of the Mid-Autumn Festival for Children
In folklore, the tale of the Mid-Autumn Festival for children goes that one day Cuội went into the forest to cut wood by a small stream and was startled when he encountered a tiger den. Seeing four tiger cubs playing inside, Cuội struck each cub once with his axe; the four cubs fell to the ground and died. After the mother tiger returned and found her cubs dead, the mother tiger immediately went toward a tree near where Cuội was hiding, plucked a few leaves, and then chewed them to feed the cubs.
Astonishingly, within a few minutes the cubs began to come back to life, leaving Cuội extremely surprised. After waiting for the mother tiger to take the cubs away, Cuội climbed down and chopped the base of that tree to take it home. On the way back, Cuội met an old man lying dead by the roadside. Cuội had just fed him leaves, and not long after the old man woke up. He said: “My goodness, this is a tree with the power to bring the dead back to life.” He told Cuội to care for the tree and not to water it with dirty water, or the tree would grow all the way to the sky.
Cuội brought it home, and he, heeding the old man’s words, planted the tree in the eastern corner of the house and watered it daily with clean well water.
One day, while crossing a river, he saw a dog about to drown; Cuội fed the dog leaves from the tree, and the dog immediately came back to life and clung to Cuội. Another day, an old rich man in a nearby village hurried to Cuội for help because his daughter had just fallen near-drowning. Cuội quickly fed leaves to the daughter, and she immediately woke up and decided to marry Cuội to show her gratitude.
One day, when Cuội was away, robbers raided the house and killed Cuội’s wife. When Cuội returned, he found his wife dead and was filled with grief. He tore out his own guts and fed leaves to his wife to revive her, but from the day his wife came back to life, she became extremely forgetful, often forgetting what he said. Cuội warned his wife not to relieve herself at the base of the tree, or the tree would grow to the sky, but when he turned away she forgot his warning and went to relieve herself at the base of the tree, causing the tree to shoot up toward the heavens. Cuội could do nothing except strike the tree with his axe to pull it down, but could not, and instead the tree pulled him upward. Since then, whenever people look up at the moon, they often see the image of Cuội sitting beside the banyan tree.
Cuội alone sits on the moon, beside the banyan tree.
Thus there is a folk saying that on the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month each year, Cuội will come back to the mortal world to visit his family, which is why there is the Mid-Autumn Festival or the Reunion Festival.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is indeed a wonderful and warm occasion, isn’t it? The Legend of the Mid-Autumn Festival for Children has helped children gain more understanding of Cuội, while also deepening their appreciation of the meaning of the Reunion Festival
The legend of the Mid-Autumn Festival for children told by mom
