The cave is situated in Thong Nhat Village, Yen Phu Commune, Ham Yen District, 55km from Tuyen Quang Town. It is famous for its wonderful landscape.
The name Fairy Cave comes from the story of a young man and a fairy. Legend has it that, long ago, when the moon was still close to the earth and the moonlight was fine everywhere but one day a piece of the moon was broken and flown away, a young, strong man brought stone from a river to patch the moon. On his way, due to heavy weight, he had to stop for rest and took away a piece of stone and the place he stopped is Toa Mountain (sitting mountain). When he continued his way, their bamboo pole broke, he fell and another piece of stone flung away and at once, it turned into a mountain called “Chan Quy” or kneeing stone. Then he went to a stream to have a bath. Suddenly, he saw a fairy riding a white horse, he waved her for help and she was glad to help him, partially he was handsome. They carried stone to the moon, but the horse couldn’t fly because of heavy stone its four legs sunk into the stream, so the horse and the couple turned into a mountain called Bach Ma (white horse).
The cave has 3 doors in the height of 300m from the foot of mountain. The air inside is cool and fresh and the whole scene of beautiful landscape can be seen from the cave-door.
The cave is large enough to contain thousand people, there are holes that look like windows. On sunny days, sunshine reflect like lighting lamps in the cave. There are stalactites and stalagmites, there’s one that looks like a great eagle holding a young girl in its legs, there’s one that looks like god of mercy on a lotus with other stone statues, elephants, tigers below. A natural music can be heard by wind striking against stone wall, stalactites and stalagmites are changeable depending on sunshine. At sun-rise, they look pink, at noon they look sparkling but at sunset, they look quite red. There are some that can make merry sounds when you strike on.
Behind Kneeing Mountain, there’s another cave called Defense Cave. It’s here that in the early 1950s, the army sheltered arms and ammunition ready for Điện Biên Phủ battle. More than 400 boxes of bullets and 100 guns were kept here.
On 15th July of 1953, a road from the cave was opened and built to the Northwest front, for the battalion N0 351, who made a great contribution to the glorious victory Dien Bien Ph. Fairy cave with its fire environment, beautiful landscape and closely-related to resounding victory become an attractive destination.
Visitors to fairy cave can sightsee and understand more about the nation’s history.