Chau Van Hymn to the Second Mother of the Mountains and Forests (Văn Chầu Đệ Nhị Thượng Ngàn): Forty Core Verses, Variants and Nhạc Phủ Hagiography

The opening stanza resounds like a ceremonial drum roll across the mountain ridges, proclaiming two of the most revered titles of the Forest Mother: Chúa Sơn Trang (Sovereign Lady of the Mountain Domain) and Lê Mại Chúa Tiên (Immortal Lady Lê Mại). Literally denoting a mountain estate or highland village, Sơn Trang in Four Palaces theology designates the entire emerald palace of Mother Thượng Ngàn together with her retinue of Royal Ladies and the Twelve Highland Fairy Damsels (Thập Nhị Tiên Nàng Sơn Trang). The sacred number thirty-six forest gates (corresponding to the thirty-six Sơn Trang grottoes and thirty-six highland prefectures) symbolizes the spatial completeness of Vietnam's mountain wilderness.

In the six-eight couplet of lines 3 and 4, the title Lê Mại Chúa Tiên (Lê Mại Đại Vương) transports the listener directly to Núi Dùm (Dùm Mountain) in Tuyên Quang Province. As Lê Quý Đôn noted in his 1777 treatise Kiến văn tiểu lục, the royal epithet Lê Mại was bestowed by the Later Lê court upon the goddess of the Lê clan who sheltered the Lam Sơn insurgents and taught the inhabitants of the Lô and Gâm River valleys how to cultivate crops and weave cloth. The Upper and Lower Temples at the foot of Dùm Mountain (alongside Ỷ La and Tam Cờ Temples in Tuyên Quang) remain among the oldest sanctuaries of Mother Thượng Ngàn in the Việt Bắc region.

The second stanza recounts the celestial parentage and auspicious birth of the Immortal Princess according to the Tuyên Quang and Thanh Hóa hagiographical stream. Just as Mother Liễu Hạnh is honored as a daughter of the Jade Emperor, the Sovereign of the Forests is venerated here as a daughter of Sovereign Śakra (Vua Đế Thích, lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven in Buddhist and Taoist cosmology), who descended to earth to be born into a noble house of the Lê clan (quý tộc Lê gia).

Her nativity is recorded through four symbolic chronological markers of East Asian calendrical science: the Year of the Monkey (năm Thân), the second day of the third lunar month, at the Hour of the Tiger (giờ Dần). In the cycle of the Twelve Earthly Branches, the third lunar month marks late spring when forest foliage bursts into lush growth, while the Hour of the Tiger (three to five o'clock in the morning) is both the moment when dawn breaks over the mountain peaks and the hour governed by the Wood element and the tiger, lord of the jungle. The poetic compound khai hoa compares her nativity to a wild mountain flower opening its petals in the morning mist.

The third stanza pauses to contemplate the serene beauty of the Forest Goddess through the refined conventions of classical Vietnamese verse. The four-syllable phrase phương phi yểu điệu combines two complementary qualities: phương phi evokes the fragrant, abundant vitality of spring blossoms and a benevolent, full countenance, while yểu điệu (drawn from the opening ode of the Classic of Poetry) denotes gentle, modest grace.

The image of a flourishing green willow (dương liễu tốt tươi) in line 10 uses the supple green of spring willow branches to mirror the signature emerald robes of the Forest Palace. Although she presides over rugged crags and untamed jungles, the Sovereign of Ten Thousand Beasts possesses a heaven-endowed dignity (dung nghi vốn sẵn tư trời) with vermilion lips, rosy cheeks and a flower-like smile, bringing maternal warmth and civilizing gentleness to the wilderness.

The fourth stanza broadens the horizon to embrace the other two great mythological streams of Mother Thượng Ngàn across the northern midlands and northeastern frontier. In the tradition centered on Mount Tản Viên (Ba Vì) and Bắc Lệ Temple in Lạng Sơn Province, Mother Thượng Ngàn is Princess La Bình, the beloved daughter of Saint Sơn Tinh (Tản Viên Sơn Thánh, foremost of the Four Immortals of Vietnam) and Princess Mỵ Nương Ngọc Hoa (daughter of the Eighteenth Hùng King). Accompanying her father across high peaks and deep ravines, she was invested by the Supreme Deity as Sovereign of the High Forests, before whom ten thousand wild beasts bow in peaceful submission (muôn thú quy hàng).

Lines 15 and 16 close the song thất lục bát section with the sacred number eighty-one golden forest gates (tám mươi mốt cửa ngàn vàng, signifying eighty-one mountain passes rich with precious forest resources) and name two celebrated pilgrimage centers: Bắc Lệ Temple amidst the hills of Hữu Lũng, Lạng Sơn, and Suối Mỡ Temple at the foot of Mount Huyền Đinh in Bắc Ninh Province (formerly Bắc Giang), where Princess Quế Mỵ Nương pressed her five fingers into the bedrock to open a cascading stream for drought-stricken farmers.

Beginning at line 17, the meter shifts into flowing lục bát (six-eight) couplets, opening the classic ballad sung at every Four Palaces shrine when offering praise to Nhạc Phủ or incarnating the Second Royal Lady. Line 18 anchors the sacred geography along the upper Red River (sông Thao): Đông Cuông and Tuần Quán. Đông Cuông Temple stands at Bến Đền Hamlet, Đông Cuông Commune, Lào Cai Province (formerly Văn Yên District, Yên Bái Province), while Tuần Quán Temple lies downstream on the Red River bank in Yên Bái Ward, Lào Cai Province. Historically, merchant boats carrying timber and cinnamon as well as pilgrim vessels traveling up the Red River always stopped to offer incense at Tuần Quán Gate before ascending to the ancestral cradle at Đông Cuông.

Lines 19 and 20, Trên ngàn gió cuốn rung cây, Dưới khe cá lặn, chim bay về ngàn, paint a masterwork of landscape poetry in just fourteen pure Vietnamese words: three vertical tiers of the highland biosphere come alive simultaneously, from the wind-tossed canopy on the ridges above to the diving stream fish in the ravines below and the flocks of birds winging homeward across the evening sky toward the shelter of the Forest Mother.

Scholars of Vietnamese folk literature regard these four lines as one of the most evocative nocturnal landscapes in the entire chầu văn canon. The time is the late night watch as the moon sinks and the stars grow faint (canh khuya nguyệt lặn sao tàn, around three to four o'clock in the morning, which is also the quietest, most numinous hour of an all-night hầu đồng ceremony). Across the mist-veiled Red River glides a crescent shuttle-boat (chiếc thoi bán nguyệt khoan khoan chèo vào): the upland dugout canoe is slender at bow and stern like a weaver's shuttle (chiếc thoi) and curved like a half-moon (bán nguyệt), while also mirroring the exact crescent bend of the Red River embracing the landing of Đông Cuông Temple. The reduplicated adverb khoan khoan (leisurely, unhurriedly) slows the moon lute and bamboo clappers into the gentle rhythm of Tày and Mường fairy oarswomen rowing their Sovereign ashore.

Line 24, Khi ra núi Đỏ, lúc vào ngàn xanh, juxtaposes two vivid colors of the upper Red River valley: Red Mountain (núi Đỏ, the iron-rich red basalt hills along the Thao River and the historic Red Mountain landmark near Cổ Phúc) set against the boundless green forest (ngàn xanh), tracing the effortless movement of the goddess across her domain.

Following the serene river arrival, lines 25 to 28 accelerate the musical pulse to proclaim her orthodox rank within the Four Palaces pantheon: Thượng Ngàn Đệ Nhị tối linh (Most numinous is the Second Sovereign of the High Forests). Holding the second seat immediately after the First Mother of Heaven, she exercises royal jurisdiction over all mountains and ranges (Ngôi cao Công Chúa quyền hành núi non).

To convey the awesome majesty of the deity who commands untamed nature, line 28 employs two dramatic natural metaphors: Sấm ran mặt bể, mưa tuôn đầu ghềnh (resounding like thunder rolling over the sea, like rain pouring down the river rapids). In the upper river gorges where flash floods and summer storms roar over rocky rapids (đầu ghềnh), upland inhabitants hear in every thunderclap and mountain downpour the sovereign presence of Mother Thượng Ngàn rewarding the upright and restraining the wicked.

Lines 29 to 32 offer a close-up portrait combining royal nobility with the distinctive grace of northern Vietnamese and upland women. The folk poet selects the purest natural imagery of the highlands to depict her sacred countenance: ivory-gleaming skin and ivory-rounded wrists (da ngà, cổ tay tựa ngà), a phoenix countenance with luminous eyes (mặt phượng long lanh), a fresh floral face and fair skin tinted like crimson stamen upon snow (nhị hồng tuyết điểm màu da).

Especially telling are the two details lush cascading dark hair (tóc xanh rườm rà, thick and flowing like a mountain stream) and temple locks neatly coiled upon her head (đầu vấn tóc mai, the traditional coiled hairstyle secured with a green turban and silver hairpin worn by Việt, Tày and Mường women), rendering the Sovereign of the Forests approachable and maternal.

Lines 33 to 36 synthesize her dual sovereignty over human communities and the animal kingdom. The name Mount Thiên Thai evokes the cloud-wreathed paradise of immortals from which the Princess descended to govern the High Forests. Line 35, Quản cai các lũng, các lang, preserves two authentic terms of highland geography and social organization: lũng designates the flat-floored limestone valleys between karst ridges (such as Hữu Lũng and Chi Lăng in the Northeast), while lang refers to the hereditary quan lang chieftains who governed traditional Mường valleys (mường) and upland villages.

Line 36, Sơn tinh, cầm thú, hổ lang khấu đầu, portrays her pacifying power over the wilderness: here sơn tinh (written in lowercase) denotes elemental spirits of crags and ancient trees, which together with forest birds and beasts (cầm thú) and tigers and wolves (hổ lang) bow their heads at the sound of her sacred music, never harming honest woodcutters and herb-gatherers.

The concluding four lines (37 to 40) open onto a vision of inter-ethnic peace and carefree spiritual freedom (tiêu dao, the classical Taoist ideal of untrammeled wandering from the Zhuangzi) across the uplands. Tam thập lục châu (all thirty-six highland districts of northern and north-central Vietnam) dwell in concord beneath her maternal canopy.

The final couplet, Rong chơi ngàn quế, ngàn đào, Khi ra thác cái, lúc vào thác con, breathes the living fragrance of Đông Cuông in Văn Yên (Lào Cai Province) and the Việt Bắc mountains: for centuries Văn Yên has been famed as the capital of vast cinnamon forests (ngàn quế) perfuming both banks of the Red River alongside wild peach valleys (ngàn đào) blooming each spring, while the great cataract and lesser falls (thác cái, thác con) evoke the dozens of waterfalls cascading from the Hoàng Liên Sơn and Con Voi ranges into the Red River where the Mother's canoe journeys day and night to bless the people.