The One-legged Bird

At the time when Hsuean-ming Ta-jen instructed Fei Lien in the secrets of magic, the latter saw a wonderful bird which drew in water with its beak and blew it out again in the shape of rain.  Fei lien tamed it, and would take it about in his sleeve.

Later on a one-legged bird was seen in the palace of the Prince of Ch’i walking up and down and hopping in front of the throne.  Being much puzzled, the Prince sent a messenger to Lu to inquire of Confucius concerning this strange behaviour.  “This bird is a shang yang” said Confucius; “its appearance is a sign of rain.  In former times the children used to amuse themselves by hopping on one foot, knitting their eyebrows, and saying:  ’It will rain, because the shang yang is disporting himself.’  Since this bird has gone to Ch’i, heavy rain will fall, and the people should be told to dig channels and repair the dykes, for the whole country will be inundated.”  Not only Ch’i, but all the adjacent kingdoms were flooded; all sustained grievous damage except Ch’i, where the necessary precautions had been taken.  This caused Duke Ching to exclaim:  “Alas! how few listen to the words of the sages!”

Ma Yuean-shuai

Ma Yuean-shuai is a three-eyed monster condemned by Ju Lai to reincarnation for excessive cruelty in the extermination of evil spirits.  In order to obey this command he entered the womb of Ma Chin-mu in the form of five globes of fire.  Being a precocious youth, he could fight when only three days old, and killed the Dragon-king of the Eastern Sea.  From his instructor he received a spiritual work dealing with wind, thunder, snakes, etc., and a triangular piece of stone which he could at will change into anything he liked.  By order of Yue Ti he subdued the Spirits of the Wind and Fire, the Blue Dragon, the King of the Five Dragons, and the Spirit of the Five Hundred Fire Ducks, all without injury to himself.  For these and many other enterprises he was rewarded by Yue Ti with various magic articles and with the title of Generalissimo of the West, and is regarded as so successful an interceder with Yue Ti that he is prayed to for all sorts of benefits.

CHAPTER VII

Myths of the Waters

The Dragons

The dragons are spirits of the waters.  “The dragon is a kind of being whose miraculous changes are inscrutable.”  In a sense the dragon is the type of a man, self-controlled, and with powers that verge upon the supernatural.  In China the dragon, except as noted below, is not a power for evil, but a beneficent being producing rain and representing the fecundating principle in nature.  He is the essence of the yang, or male, principle.  “He controls the rain, and so holds in his power