Sọ Dừa (English: "Coconut Skull" or "Coconut Shell Boy") is a Vietnamese folktale attributed to the Kinh people, about the marriage between a princess and the titular Coconut Skull, whose lame disguise belies a handsome youth underneath it; later, her envious sisters try to murder her and replace her as the lame suitor's wife. It is a form of the international cycle of the Animal as Bridegroom that exists in Vietnam.

Summary A poor couple lives in a village and works for a local rich lord. On one hot day, the wife goes into the forest to gather firewood, she becomes thirsty. Unable to find any water source, she notices a human skull filled with water which she drinks from. In time, she becomes pregnant, despite her old age, and her husband dies. While pregnant, she does the heavy lifting in the lord's house, and nine months later gives birth to a round, bodiless creature with a face. She tries to destroy whatever she gave birth to, wraps it in a cloth and goes to a river to drown it, but the creature pleads to be spared, since he is her son. The old woman brings the round boy home and raises him. Still, her employer banishes her and her son to a hut in the forest, since he believes the boy's birth was the work of evil spirits.

Despite his strange appearance, the spherical, bodiless son, named Sho Zya (which means 'coconut'), is intelligent. One day, his mother asks him to stay home, while she brings them some food and rice to eat. After she leaves, So Dua changes his appearance from a round coconut to that of a normal human youth and does the chores at home, then returns to his coconut shape. His mother notices all chores are done by the time she comes back but does not suspect anything. Later, after hearing his mother sighing about the local children herding buffalo and goat cattle in the village and the local lord offering similar job opportunities, So Dua offers to be the lord's shepherd to bring food home. Despite some reservations, his mother talks to the local lord of her son's decision, and So Dua is soon hired to the position: he is to take the cattle to graze in the mountains and return at night.

So Dua herds the goat cattle, come rain, come sunshine. The tale then explains that the lord's three daughters are tasked with bringing food to their goatherd during harvest time, while the servants are busy elsewhere. One day, the youngest daughter, kind and beautiful, unlike her elder sisters, goes to bring food to So Dua, and hears a sweet melody played on a flute. She looks for its source, and finds a handsome youth lying on a hammock and playing the tune. The girl is struck by the melody and the youth's beauty, and accidentally snaps a twig. Suddenly, the stranger stops playing and turns back to the round, bodiless So Dua. The girl is glad to have discovered his secret, and looks forward to her turns to bring him food, falling even more in love with him as time goes by.

Some time later, So Dua asks his mother to propose on his behalf to one of the lord's daughters. The lord demands a hefty suitor's task first: to produce a bowl of pure gold, ten pieces of fine silk, woven with silver and pearls, ten jars of wine, a herd of ten fat pigs and ten goats, and a five-story house. The coconut skull's mother informs his son about it. The lord also asks his daughters which one chooses to marry So Dua: the elder two refuse, save for the youngest, who agrees to marry whomever her father chooses for her. As the wedding approaches, So Dua's mother worries about delivering the requested gifts, but So Dua allays her fears and, on the wedding day, he uses his powers to transform their humble hut into a palace, then summons a retinue of richly-dressed people to carry the gifts to the lord's daughter. The coconut skull then invites every villager to his wedding party and marries the lord's cadette. He retires from the party for a while, when a handsome youth appears and takes So Dua's bride's hand in his, announcing he is, in fact, So Dua's true form.

The former coconut skull studies hard and takes on royal examinations at the king's capital, becoming a "Chang-Ngyuen". He goes back home to mourn for his dead mother, and is summoned back to the king's court at the capital. Before he departs, he gives his wife a flint, a knife and two chicken eggs as a precaution, and leaves to the king's court. Stories of So Dua's handsome countenance reach the ears of his sisters-in-law, who begin to despise their cadette and trick her to get rid of their rival: they invite So Dua's wife for a boatride downstream. As the boat sways on the turbulent waters and a giant fish devours the boats, the girl's elder sisters toss the oars in the water, swim back to the shore and abandon their sister to die in the sea, while they feign grieving for her.

The girl is swallowed by a large fish, but she takes out the knife and cuts her way out of the fish, killing it. She reaches an island where she makes her temporary residence, forages for roots and fruits and cooks the fish's meat with her husband's flint. The eggs also hatch a rooster and a hen she treats as her companions. One day, as a large boat, her husband's, sails along the coast, the rooster crows that its master is coming to rescue his wife. The hen crows soon after. So Dua docks on the island and reunites with his wife, then takes her on the ship with him, as they make their way home and his wife tells So Dua of the sisters-in-law's wicked plan. Thus, So Dua invites the whole village for a feast in celebration of his return. His sisters-in-law, still pretending to grief over their lost sister, don fine garments and attend the event. At one point, So Dua announces he will bring a guest to greet his in-laws: it is his wife, still alive, to the sisters' horror. The duo leave the event and are never seen again."Сказки и легенды Вьетнама" [Tales and Legends of Vietnam]. Составитель [Compiler]: В. Карпов. Мoskva: Государственное издательство художественной литературы, 1958. pp. 112-125.

Translations The tale was also translated to Russian as "Человек, круглый, как кокосовый орех" ("A man round as a coconut"), wherein the coconut husband's name is given as Sho Zua.

Analysis Tale type The tale is part of the Animal as Bridegroom cycle: a human maiden marries a man in strange or animal form and disenchants him, or to the cycle of the "person in animal disguise" or "person in ugly disguise". In another line of scholarship, scholar Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui recognized the Kinh story of So Dua as part of a new tale type, which he calls "the metamorphosed character tale type" which he abstracted based on tales from Vietnam. In this narrative, the main character is born to human parents in "grotesque corporeality" (an animal or some abnormal shape), bringing them disappointment and shame; later, the abnormal son expresses his wish to marry a local maiden, daughter to a ruler or a rich man who orders the prospective bridegroom to provide extravagant wedding gifts; the maiden marries the abnormal bridegroom, who becomes a normal human. According to Bui, some stories can thematically end at the hero's transformation, but they can continue with another sequence: the heroine's elder sisters try to kill her, but she survives with the help of some objects her husband gave her.

Motifs The coconut husband According to Russian Vietnamologist , the folklore of Vietnam, namely, from the Viets, the Cham and the mountain people of South Vietnam, is separate, but interconnected, so that it is characterized by a commonality of narratives which are, however, interpreted differently by each people. One example is the one story about the "hopeless boy/youth" ("Не подающем надежд", in the original) or "unpromising youth":Мифы и предания Вьетнама / Предисл., пер. с вьетнамского и ханваня, коммент. Е. Ю. Кнорозовой. СПб.: «Петербургское Востоковедение», 2000. p. 13. a boy is born with uncanny appearance or with a "defect" that makes him look like a pumpkin, but he is diligent and hardworking,Nikulin, Nikolay. "Сказки народов Вьетнама". Мoskva: Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука», 1970. p. 7. and helps his parents in their chores."Сказки и предания Вьетнама". Составитель: Юлия Минина. Moskva: Издательский дом Высшей школы экономики, 2021. p. 24. . In this narrative, the strange husband appears in the form of a round, legless and armless creature, like a coconut, a stone, a skull born to a childless couple; despite being ostracized by his appearance at first, he turns into a handsome youth and marries a local ruler's daughter."Сказки и предания Вьетнама". Составитель: Юлия Минина. Moskva: Издательский дом Высшей школы экономики, 2021. pp. 25-26. . He appears as a handsome youth before his wife, who destroys the covering, causing him to remain human or to disappear.

This tale is said to be "very popular" in Southeast Asia, and the form of the son can alternate with a type of animal, like a snake or a monitor lizard, or another "lesser species", like an aquatic reptile or amphibian. Scholar Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui adds that the deformed husband can assume "a gourd, a goat, a toad, or a turtle shape" in tales from peoples from Vietnam.

Parallels Vietnamese scholars have called attention to the similarities between the Kinh tale So Dua and stories from the Cham and Raglai wherein the main character is a male son born as a round coconut, but transforms into a human youth and marries a human princess. In addition, according to Russian Orientalist , stories of the round, bodiless, limbless son who becomes a handsome youth exist "in particular" among the Viet, Cham, Sedang and Thai people.. "Чамское предание о кокосовом орехе: миф или сказка?" In: Языки и лит. Дал. Востока и Юго-Вост. Азии: материалы конф., Санкт-Петербург, 18–20 янв., 1994. Сankt Пeterбurg: 1994. pp. 148–153 . Scholar Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui reports the same character (hero born in coconut husk shape) from Thailand and Myanmar.

Origins Scholar Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui sources the story of So Dua to Central Vietnam, due to the presence of coconut trees, for instance, in Tam Quan and Binh Dinh. In a different position, Vietnamese folklorist considered that stories of So đừa ("The Coconut Shell Man") "adapted to Kinh culture" and ended like the tale "Marrying a Goat".

Interpretation

The story has been interpreted to hark back to totemic stories about tribal origins. In both cycles (the husband narrative and tribal myths), the strange husband's form (theriomorphic or phytomorphic) is linked to water."Сказки и предания Вьетнама". Составитель: Юлия Минина. Moskva: Издательский дом Высшей школы экономики, 2021. p. 226 (notes to tale nr. 5). .

In the same vein, scholar Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui notes that the form of the hero varies according to the tale and the tale according to its ethnic source, which means that the story and the character are seen differently, depending on the culture.

Variants Marrying a Goat