Anecdote about 600-year-old tree

      For more than 600 years, the ancient da huong tree (Tree of the Wild Scent) in Duong Pham village, Yen Nhan commune, Y Yen district, Nam Dinh province, one of the three ancient da huong in the world, has witnessed many interesting things in the peaceful village.
Duong Pham villagers see the ancient da huong as not simply an ancient, rare attar tree, but a symbol of solemnity, a soldier who guards the sleep of King Le Thanh Tong’s young wife. All villagers, from the young to the elderly, know the legend related to this ancient tree.
Nearly 600 years ago, while passing Yen Nhan commune, King Le Thanh Tong admired the sweet voice of a country girl who was cutting grass on the river bank. The girl not only had a good voice, but was very beautiful and talented. The King fell in love with the girl so he returned to Duong Pham village to take her to the capital.
However, the young girl was sick and died just three years later. Her wish was to be buried in her hometown, Duong Pham village. The King carried his wife’s body, with nine boats of five-colour sand and blue stones, to build her tomb. Before the tomb was completed, a storm came. Within one night, a termite nest appeared on the piece of land around the coffin. Builders planted a strange tree, which gave off a pervasive scent, on that termite nest. The local people didn’t know the name of that tree. They called it xoan ra tree.
Old villagers said that villagers didn’t know that the xoan ra tree at Mieu Nha Ba Temple was a rare tree which is listed in the World Red Book and there are only three such trees in the whole world, including two in Vietnam. They said that whenever they got a cold or sick, they often took that tree’s root or skin to boil with water to inhale.
It is special that mosquitoes and flies never appear around the tree. A branch of da huong, which was broken off a dozen years ago, is still kept by local people. Whenever visitors come to the village, local residents often chop off a small piece of that branch to give them as gifts. The wood gets dry but it still emits a special scent.
A local villager named Kien recalled that when he was a boy, whenever the lunar New Year came, his parents asked him to pick small branches of da huong to burn at home as a replacement for aloe wood.
After knowing about the 600-year-old da huong tree in Nam Dinh, a group of researchers from the Biodiversity Research Centre of the Hanoi Teacher Training University went to Duong Pham to research the tree in August 2007. This centre previously had published a research work about the 1,000-year-old da huong in Giua village, Tien Luc commune, Lang Giang district, Bac Giang province, which was recognised as a national cultural heritage in 1989.
However, like the other tree, the da huong in Nam Dinh is also sick, scientists said. Dr. Vu Quang Manh, Director of the Biodiversity Research Centre, said it is necessary to take comprehensive measures to take care of and protect the da huong tree in Nam Dinh.
He said the first task is dealing with parasitic trees on the ancient da huong. This job must be performed gradually and carefully because the two sides have been living symbiotically for a very long time.
The ancient tree needs to be officially recognised and preserved by state agencies, Manh said.