In the heart of Taiwan’s rolling hills, there was a humble cottage where a widow and her son lived a simple life. Their field, more rocks than soil, was a stubborn patch of earth that refused to yield much.
Each morning, the son would leave home into the pre-dawn chill, hoping to earn money as a day worker. Every evening, he would come back at night, tired to his bones, only to share a small bowl of rice with his mother before going to sleep, and then do the same thing again on the next day.
One evening, as the moon climbed high and before the son got home from work, and son’s bowl of rice was set out on the table waiting, an unexpected visitor emerged at the door—a beggar, as thin as a shadow, his clothes tattered. His eyes, though, told stories of roads long traveled.
The beggar’s voice was a soft plea for food. The widow, with the gentle grace of a breeze, offered the waiting bowl of rice to the stranger. Her heart swelled with compassion, even as her eyes brimmed with worry for her absent son.
As the beggar ate, he noticed her tears. “Why do you cry, kind lady?” he asked.
She brushed away a tear, offering a smile in its place. “It’s nothing,” she told the beggar. “My son is strong. He can miss a meal.”
Their conversation turned to their lives, and she laughed a bitter-sweet laugh, telling the beggar of their barren field, the very one that lay just beyond their doorstep, yielding nothing of worth.
The beggar listened, a knowing look in his eyes. Without another word, he stood and walked into the field. There, he began an odd dance, spitting out grains of the gifted rice in every direction.
The widow watched, puzzled and a little scared, as the beggar completed his mysterious ritual. Then he faced her, his face was kind and wise. “Your kindness to me will be repaid,” he promised. “Your days of poverty are at an end.”
With those strange parting words, he disappeared into the night. The widow, unsure what to make of it all, retreated inside.
When she and her son woke up the next morning, a miracle greeted them. Where barren dirt once stubbornly sat, a sea of white blossoms now blew in the soft wind. The field was a blanket of white narcissus, so dense, not a single patch of earth showed through. The flowers’ sweet scent filled the air and was a sign of new beginnings and a better life.
Then the mother knew—the beggar was not just a traveler, but an angel of prosperity. Thanking him she named the flowers “the angel’s flower,” which we know today as the white narcissus (水仙).
Word spread of the miraculous field, and soon everyone clamored for the flowers. The widow and her son, who had given selflessly, were now gifted in return. They sold the blooms, their fragrance sweet as their newfound fortune, and poverty was a tale of the past. No more empty field – they lived happy ever after.
