"The Buffalo Boy and the Banyan Tree" is a legend from Vietnam.

Look up — there, in the moon, are a spreading banyan tree and a young man. His name is Cuoi, and long before he lived on the moon he was a regular boy.

Cuoi liked to tell little white lies, and sometimes he told big lies, too. As time passed, he became known as a troublemaker.

One day, when Cuoi was supposed to be tending the buffalo of a rich farmer, he decided he would rather play. He escaped into the forest where no one could find him.

When he grew tired, he lay down beneath a banyan tree and squinted up at the birds dancing in the cool autumn wind.

A whimpering noise coming from a nearby thicket attracted his attention. Cautiously he stood up and tiptoed toward the sound. He pushed aside some leaves and spotted four little tiger cubs.

Cuoi knelt down beside the cubs and began to play with them. He laughed as they tumbled and rolled.

Then, because he so loved pranks, Cuoi began to tease the cubs. He dangled one of the little creatures high in the air, as its brothers and sisters stared up helplessly.

Just then, Cuoi heard something padding through the undergrowth. He dropped the cub to the ground, where it fell with a thud.

Knowing what would happen if the mother of the cubs found him, he raced to the banyan tree and scrambled up the trunk.

When the tigress discovered her injured cub, she growled in anguish.

Cuoi could hear sorrow and fury in that growl. He held his breath and sat as quietly as he could, terrified the tigress would discover he was the culprit.

But the tigress did something strange. She walked to a small banyan sapling growing close to the tree in which he hid. Cuoi trembled as she bit off several leaves, but apparently she did not see or hear or smell him. She began to chew those leaves, then walked to her cub and placed the matted leaves inside the cub's mouth.

Cuoi watched in amazement as the lifeless cub opened his eyes, and within a few minutes, got up on his own and began to run about. Cuoi let out a small sigh of relief, for the cub was healed.

So those leaves are magic, Cuoi thought. I could do many things with such a tree.

When the tigress saw that her cub was well, she carried all four into the forest to find a safer hiding place.

Cuoi waited until nightfall, when he was certain the tigress and her cubs were far away, to climb down the tree. He grabbed the slim trunk of a sapling banyan nearby, pulled it up by its roots and hurried home. There, beside his house, he planted that tree.

The next day Cuoi cured one of his friends of an illness no one could cure, simply by offering him some banyan leaves mixed in a cup of tea. After he had cured many sick people, he became famous for his ability to heal the most difficult cases.

The little sapling flourished and grew rapidly. As time passed, Cuoi became quite prosperous and was called the "miracle doctor."

Some years later, when he revived the daughter of a village leader, he asked for the hand of the daughter in marriage, instead of a fee. The daughter was overjoyed, for Cuoi was thought to be a young man of great promise. And so they married.

The trouble was, Cuoi had not changed altogether. After a while his wife became annoyed at his lazy ways and at the tricks he played, and frustrated by the love he lavished upon his tree.

One day as Cuoi was leaving to pay a visit to a sick neighbor, he turned to his wife and said, "Make certain you take care of my tree while I'm gone."

This was the last straw. The moment Cuoi was out of sight, his wife carried a huge bucket of soapy, dirty water to the tree and poured it on the roots.

The tree began to shake and shudder. She was alarmed to see the tree tearing itself out of the ground. Cuoi happened to return just at that moment, for he had forgotten something, and there was his precious tree, beginning to rise into the sky!

"Stop, stop, you mustn't leave me," Cuoi cried. He knew if he did not have the magical banyan, he would lose his status and respect. "Wait," he cried, and he ran as fast as he could toward the tree and grabbed onto its roots.

Cuoi was not nearly heavy enough to hold the tree down, and so it carried him up, all the way into the sky and onto the moon, where he and the tree live to this day.

Some people in Vietnam believe that each autumn a few leaves from that banyan tree fall to Earth. They say whoever is lucky enough to find one of those leaves will be able to heal sickness as Cuoi did. And so, if a leaf lands on you, be careful with it. It may be a leaf from the tree on the moon.