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Is the mountain full of gold and jewels?
Completely isolated from the other seven villages, Tien Nong village, located in Thieu Long commune, Thieu Hoa district, Thanh Hoa province, is famous throughout the region for its mountain known as the "fairy mountain." To reach it, we had to cross a pontoon bridge made of cement by the locals over the Cau Chay River. Currently, the bridge is in a state of disrepair.
According to local accounts, behind the village lies a rocky mountain called Tien Nong. In this area, people unearthed many valuable artifacts made of gold and copper. They sold them and used the proceeds to build spacious and comfortable houses.
According to Mr. Le Van Sanh (born in 1942), a resident of Tien Nong village, exactly 20 years ago, a young man named Vu Van Lam went up the mountain to play and unexpectedly found two gold discs. He sold the discs for over 20 million dong, used the money to build a multi-story house, and now lives near the foot of this rocky mountain.
There was another strong young man, whose house was near the foot of the mountain. While plowing his field, he unexpectedly encountered a strange object that broke his plow in two. When he stopped to see what the object was that could have broken the plow like that, he was extremely surprised to find it was a golden bell. After selling it for money, the young man returned home and lived a comfortable life, content with his life by the pond, until today.
A mountain with many mysterious and intriguing features in Thanh Hoa.
Not only that, but just four years ago, while digging a pond, Mr. Vu Van Truong and his family unexpectedly found a jade Buddha statue with "a thousand eyes and a thousand hands." The statue was only the size of a lighter but emitted a very sparkling aura. Like other villagers, Mr. Truong sold the statue for 10 million dong.
The story told to us by Mr. Trinh Van Tam was even more intriguing and captivating. According to Mr. Tam, while digging holes to plant trees, his family unearthed a golden horse at the foot of a large banyan tree in their garden, near the foot of Tien Mountain. “According to my father, every night at midnight on days when it was drizzling and windy, a creature resembling a horse would appear on Tien Mountain, running around the hill. This horse constantly changed color; from a distance it appeared red, but upon closer inspection it turned green.”
Besides its mysterious and rich "treasure," Tien Nong Mountain is also home to giant pythons. Thirty years ago, villagers in Tien Nong captured a python weighing over 100 kilograms that had almost completely swallowed a mountain goat. The villagers butchered the python and shared the meat. According to many locals, there is currently a very large python nest on the mountain, but no one dares to enter to catch it for fear of retaliation from the king python.
"The chessboard of destiny"
After hearing the somewhat mystical stories woven by the locals about a mountain inhabited by fairies, Mr. Tam led us along a rough, rocky path to the summit of the mountain behind the village to see this mysterious mountain for ourselves.
Mr. Trinh Van Tam is pointing to the chessboard.
Perhaps because many curious locals, especially the children tending cattle, still came to see it, the smooth stones and vegetation along the path had been flattened to the sides. Mr. Tam led us to a large stone slab under a mahogany tree and said it was the "fairy's chessboard."
The slab of stone was covered with a thick layer of decaying leaves and dust. Brushing away the leaves, we saw a chessboard with diagonal lines on the large, indistinct surface. According to Mr. Tam, "When I was a child, I could see the chessboard of the immortals very clearly. Now, it's faded by the rain and sun of time. I heard the village elders recount that once, on a bright full moon night, they saw two immortals playing a game of 'destiny.' When they heard footsteps, the two immortals quickly pushed a nearby slab of stone to cover up the earthly game. Perhaps because the immortals' power was so great, pushing the slab created a centrifugal force between the two stones, causing the stone to be split in two."
After observing the chessboard for a while, Mr. Tam continued to lead me down the mountain along a different path to a very large python den that he had previously said no one dared to go up to catch for fear of retaliation.
To verify the authenticity of the mystical stories we had just heard, we sought out Mr. Vu Dinh Thu (born in 1960) - the head of Tien Nong village. In our conversation, Mr. Thu confirmed that the stories of villagers finding and selling ancient artifacts and capturing giant pythons were entirely true.
Mr. Vu Dinh Thu, the village head of Tien Nong, is recounting the history of Tien Nong mountain.
He said: "Mount Tien Nong was formerly called Mount Nuong. The chessboard on the stone slab has also been there for a very long time, but no one knows exactly when it originated. Previously, archaeologists from the Provincial Department of Culture discovered ancient Vietnamese remains dating back 30,000 years on Mount Nuong."
The Chairman of the People's Committee of Thieu Long commune, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Tinh, shared: "According to local rumors, some people still find treasures up there, especially households near the mountain. As for the story of seeing two immortals playing chess, it's just a fabricated tale with no verifiable basis. It's considered a folk tale, and folk tales are often subject to change and embellishment," Mr. Tinh shared.
