Myths and Legends of China, E. Werner [best english novels for beginners TXT] 📗

People have Page 405tried to patch up the disfigured countenance, but in vain: the plaster always falls off, and the face remains skinless.

Some try to defend the Ch’êng-huang P’u-sa by saying that he was not at home on the day when his temple was visited by the accused boy and his relatives, and that one of the little demons employed by him in carrying off dead people’s spirits out of sheer mischief perpetrated a practical joke on the poor boy.

In that case it is certainly hard that his skin should so persistently testify against him by refusing to remain on his face!

The Origin of a Lake

In the city of Ta-yeh Hsien, Hupei, there is a large sheet of water known as the Liang-ti Lake. The people of the district give the following account of its origin:

About five hundred years ago, during the Ming dynasty, there was no lake where the broad waters now spread. A flourishing hsien city stood in the centre of a populous country. The city was noted for its wickedness, but amid the wicked population dwelt one righteous woman, a strict vegetarian and a follower of all good works. In a vision of the night it was revealed to her that the city and neighbourhood would be destroyed by water, and the sign promised was that when the stone lions in front of the yamên wept tears of blood, then destruction was near at hand. Like Jonah at Nineveh, the woman, known to-day simply as Niang-tzŭ, walked up and down the streets of the city, warning all of the coming calamity. She was laughed at and looked upon as mad by the careless people. A pork-butcher in the town, a noted wag, took some pig’s blood and sprinkled it round the eyes of the stone lions. This had the desired effect, for when Niang-tzŭ saw the blood Page 406she fled from the city amid the jeers and laughter of the inhabitants. Before many hours had passed, however, the face of the sky darkened, a mighty earthquake shook the country-side, there was a great subsidence of the earth’s surface, and the waters of the Yangtzŭ River flowed into the hollow, burying the city and villages out of sight. But a spot of ground on which the good woman stood, after escaping from the doomed city, remained at its normal level, and it stands to-day in the midst of the lake, an island called Niang-tzŭ, a place at which boats anchor at night, or to which they fly for shelter from the storms that sweep the lake. They are saved to-day because of one good woman helped by the gods so long ago.

As a proof of the truth of the above story, it is asserted that on clear days traces of the buried city may be seen, while occasionally a fisherman casting his net hauls up some household utensil or relic of bygone days.

Miao Creation Legends

If the Miao have no written records, they have many legends in verse, which they learn to repeat and sing. The Hei Miao (or Black Miao, so called from their dark chocolate-coloured clothes) treasure poetical legends of the Creation and of a deluge. These are composed in lines of five syllables, in stanzas of unequal length, one interrogative and one responsive. They are sung or recited by two persons or two groups at feasts and festivals, often by a group of youths and a group of maidens. The legend of the Creation commences:

Who made Heaven and earth?

Who made insects?

Who made men?

Made male and made female?

I who speak don’t know.

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Heavenly King made Heaven and earth,

Ziene made insects,

Ziene made men and demons,

Made male and made female.

How is it you don’t know?

How made Heaven and earth?

How made insects?

How made men and demons?

Made male and made female?

I who speak don’t know.

Heavenly King was intelligent,

Spat a lot of spittle into his hand,

Clapped his hands with a noise,

Produced Heaven and earth,

Tall grass made insects,

Stories made men and demons,

Made male and made female.

How is it you don’t know?

The legend proceeds to state how and by whom the heavens were propped up and how the sun was made and fixed in its place, but the continuation is exceedingly silly.

The legend of the Flood is another very silly composition, but it is interesting to note that it tells of a great deluge. It commences:

Who came to the bad disposition,

To send fire and burn the hill?

Who came to the bad disposition,

To send water and destroy the earth?

I who sing don’t know.

Zie did. Zie was of bad disposition,

Zie sent fire and burned the hill;

Thunder did. Thunder was of bad disposition,

Thunder sent water and destroyed the earth.

Why don’t you know?

In this story of the flood only two persons were saved in a large bottle gourd used as a boat, and these were Page 408A Zie and his sister. After the flood the brother wished his sister to become his wife, but she objected to this as not being proper. At length she proposed that one should take the upper and one the nether millstone, and going to opposite hills should set the stones rolling to the valley between. If these should be found in the valley properly adjusted one above the other she would be his wife, but not if they came to rest apart. The young man, considering it unlikely that two stones thus rolled down from opposite hills would be found in the valley one upon another, while pretending to accept the test suggested, secretly placed two other stones in the valley one upon the other. The stones rolled from the hills were lost in the tall wild grass, and on descending into the valley A Zie called his sister to come and see the stones he had placed. She, however, was not satisfied, and suggested as another