In a village in Vietnam, there was a boy named Cuoi, who was an orphan, doing woodcutting. He was extremely intelligent and kind. One day, in the forest, he discovered a big banyan being able to cure many diseases. He brought it to his house and grew it beside the house. Every day he brought banyan leaves going to cure for the patients in the village.

Soon, Cuoi got married. Every day he still went to help the patients in the village. Every time leaving home, he did not forget to tell his wife to take care of the banyan tree carefully, not to water dirty water on the tree or the tree would disappear. Cuoi’s wife was a poor memory woman, not remembering what her husband had said. One day when Cuoi left to go cure a sick neighbor, his wife poured a huge bucket of soapy, dirty water on the tree's roots. Immediately, the ground and the sky shook. At that time, Cuoi returned to the yard, he saw the banyan slowly pulled its root out of the ground. Being available the axe with him, Cuoi cut into the banyan tree root to keep it. But helpless. The wind kept taking Cuoi and the tree flying straight up to the moon.

Since then, on the ground, looking up at the moon, especially in the full moon nights, we have seen the image of Cuoi (Moon Boy) sitting beside the banyan root. And also since then, Moon Palace has become the residence of the Moon Boy. The fairy tale of Moon Boy makes the moon become more mysterious and attractive.

Long, long time ago there was a clever boy whose name was Cuoi. He did nothing with his cleverness but to play trick on people around him. He lived with his uncle and aunt who were usually suffered from his cheats.

Once day Cuoi came to the field and broke the bad new to the uncle that his wife had fell down from the ladder and bled. The man was so frighten that he ran to his home without saying a word. Cuoi at that time reached the house before his poor uncle by a short cut then broke another bad new to his aunt that her husband was collided by the buffalo and was going to died. The poor woman was scared and immediately ran out to the field. Suddenly she bumped to a man and recognized that it was her husband who was panting and sweating like her. The poor couple came back with anger and decided to imprison him into a bamboo cage then drifted him in the river.

In the afternoon when Cuoi was carried to the river’s bank, he regretfully said sorry to them and asked them to come back home to bring him a book hidden behind the basket of rice that taught him telling lie as the last favour. They both agreed and returned home to satisfy their curiosity without saying a word.

After that Cuoi saw a blind man passed by. He then asked the man to untight the cage if he wanted to have his eyes cured. At last Cuoi was free and hid himself in a bamboo grave and luckily found a jar of gold. He came back and gave it to his uncle and his aunt to atone for faults while the poor blind man was waiting for his eyes treated.
 

Later Cuoi got married with a girl in the village and went on pulling people’s leg. Once morning he came into the forest and saw a tiger mother picking leaves from a kind of tree to cure her son’s wound. Immediately the wound was recovered and the tiger baby could follow his mother to continue their trip. Cuoi grasped the opportunity to uproot the tree and rose it in the garden behind his house. He called the tree Banyan and took good care to it. He always reminded his wife that the tree was magic one so it was impossible to pour dirty water or dump the garbage at its root otherwise it would fly to the heaven. His poor wife sometimes envied with the tree so she dumped garbage at the tree root once day.

When Cuoi came home he found the tree was shaking and flying higher and higher in the sky. He tried to hold its root to pull it back but he couldn’t. The tree actually pulled him farther and farther from the earth until it reached the moon.

It is said that there is still image of Cuoi sitting at the root of Banyan tree and looking down to see the world and there is also a Vietnamese saying ” lie as Cuoi”.