"Mother owl and fairy..."

Vietnamese proverb says "Mother owl, child fairy" (variant version "Mother owl, child fairy, kind mother, child raging").

The book Dictionary of Vietnamese Proverbs (Nguyen Duc Duong - Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House, 2010) collected the version "Mother owl, child fairy; kind mother, child rustling [?]" but did not explain it and classified it as "Unclear meaning".

In fact, “Mother owl, child fairy; kind mother, child scorpion” is a synonym of the sentence “Owl parents give birth to fairy children”, which Nguyen Duc Duong himself collected and explained as “Both parents are (ugly) owls but the children born are as beautiful as fairies. It is often used to indicate the superiority of children over their parents thanks to the blessings of their ancestors”.

Normally, parents with handsome, beautiful appearance and gentle temperament will give birth to smart, beautiful children (Dragon egg hatches a dragon, Tiger father gives birth to tiger son). However, there are cases of "Owl mother gives birth to fairy child; kind mother gives birth to a fierce child", or "Owl parents give birth to fairy child". Due to the combination of good genes of the parents, there are cases of "parents" who are ugly and mean, but give birth to smart, bright children. Therefore, the Tay proverb also has a similar comment: "The plow is ugly, the fairy is beautiful - The mother is ugly as a toad, the child is beautiful as a fairy". The author Nguyen Duc Duong's explanation of the reason as "thanks to the blessings of ancestors" is on the one hand redundant, on the other hand lacking scientific basis.

Coming to the sentence "Mother owl, child fairy; kind mother, child rustling", perhaps because he did not understand what "rustling" is, author Nguyen Duc Duong marked [?] after this word and classified it as "unclear meaning".

Actually, the correct spelling is "scrunch", not "xuc sac". In Thanh Hoa dialect, "scrunch" means a mischievous, rude person (for example: Naughty like "scrunch"!). Vietnamese dictionary (Le Van Duc) explains "scrunch" as "rude, impolite: "Do "scrunch"".

In contrast to the phenomenon of an ugly mother giving birth to a beautiful child, is a kind mother giving birth to a naughty, rude child. This is a phenomenon of genetic "mutation", the children cannot inherit the dominant genes of their parents, cannot inherit the good qualities of their ancestors. Therefore, the Chinese proverb also has the saying "A dragon gives birth to nine sons, not all nine sons become dragons" - 龍生有九子,九子不成龍, meaning a dragon gives birth to nine sons, not all nine sons become dragons; or "One dragon gives birth to nine children, each one is different" 一龍生九種, 種種各別 - One dragon gives birth to nine sons, each one is different (synonymous with "Parents give birth to children, God gives birth to their personalities").

Thus, the saying “Mother owl, child fairy, mother gentle, child rambunctious” is not so difficult to understand that it must be classified as “unclear meaning”, and it is a phenomenon explained by genetics, not related to “ancestral blessings”.

Man Nong (Contributor)

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/me-cu-con-tien-270888.htm