The Gióng festival at Phù Đổng and Sóc temples: two festivals, one hero

The short answer

The Gióng festival is held twice a year at two temples on the outskirts of Hà Nội, for one legendary hero, Thánh Gióng. UNESCO's listing places the Sóc temple festival in the first lunar month and the Phù Đổng temple festival in the fourth lunar month, and describes them as different rites: the bathing of the hero's statue and a procession of bamboo flowers at Sóc; at Phù Đổng, the riding of a white horse into battle and a flag dance that stands for the battle itself. UNESCO inscribed the festival on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.[2][1]

The hero and the two places

In the legend summarised in Viet Nam's nomination file, Gióng could neither talk nor walk at three, grew into a giant on hearing the king's call for help against foreign invaders, defeated them, and then rode to Sóc mountain and flew into heaven.[3] He is worshipped as a saint and, in UNESCO's words, as "the patron god of the harvest, national peace and family prosperity".[1]

That legend fixes the two places. Phù Đổng is the village of his birth; Sóc is where he ascended.[1] The nomination file locates Phù Đổng temple in Gia Lâm district and Sóc temple in Sóc Sơn district, and notes that both districts, and Long Biên, once belonged to Bắc Ninh province and had become part of Hà Nội by 2010.[3] Those are the units the file named in 2010; XTOUR does not translate them into the names used after Vietnam's 2025 reorganisation. UNESCO's own summary says only "outlying districts of Hanoi", and XTOUR does not place either temple inside its Hanoi destination.[1]

How the two festivals differ

At Sóc, the nomination file describes the bamboo flowers as pieces of bamboo sharpened into flowers and dyed in several colours, mostly yellow, carried to the temple as offerings to the saint.[3] Because Tết begins the first lunar month, XTOUR's reading is that the Sóc festival comes a few days after the new year; the Tết article explains how that holiday is set.

At Phù Đổng, the festival is a staged battle. UNESCO describes young men trained for the roles of Flag Master, Drum Master, Gong Master, Army Master and Children's Master, and 28 girls aged 9 to 13 chosen to play the enemy generals.[1] The nomination file adds that the Masters must be under 26 (the Children's Master under 16), are trained for the whole month before the festival, and live and eat apart, dealing with others through escorts.[3] The flag dance and the sound of drums and gongs show the course of the battle, and paper butterflies released from the flag stand for the scattering of the invaders.[1] The file places the battle scenes at Đống Đàm and Soi Bia, which it puts three kilometres from the temple, and says an Ải Lao singing troupe from Hội Xá village sings and dances in praise of the hero.[3] Rain after the festival is read as the saint's blessing on the harvest.[1]

The dates: lunar, not Gregorian

UNESCO gives lunar months only, and the nomination file lunar days.[3][1] The national tourism authority's event page says the Phù Đổng re-enactment "takes place in May", and its date field reads 19 to 20 May 2021, a past year.[4] That is a Gregorian month set against a lunar date, and the two sources do not say the same thing in the same calendar. XTOUR does not convert lunar days to Gregorian dates and has no announced programme for any year.

Continuity and pressure

The festival was not held from 1941 to 1954 and from 1960 to 1980, during war, though villagers still made offerings at the temples, according to the nomination file. The file says it is organised according to the Phù Đổng village Festival Notebook (Sổ Hội), with village elders, the temple's heritage management board and local authorities working together. In 2010 the same file named the threats: urbanisation shrinking the space where the festival is performed, local budgets that no longer covered its cost, and "a distinct possibility of commodification".[3] UNESCO's decision records the festival as "deeply rooted in the communities of the Red River Delta".[2]

What XTOUR does not know

• The Gregorian dates of either festival in any year, or whether a programme has been announced.
• How visitors reach either temple, where they may stand during the rites, or any rule on photography; the sources XTOUR read do not address visitors' conduct.
• The current administrative names for the communes and districts the 2010 file lists.

For the wider set of Vietnamese practices on UNESCO's lists, see what UNESCO lists for Vietnam. The heritage words article explains the Vietnamese word đền used for both temples.