Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library)

by Roberts, Moss

  This rash deed angered the king of the dead, and he ordered Mr. Liu whipped with hundreds of strokes. Then he turned him into a snake and confined him to a secluded room so dark that he never saw the sky. Frustrated, Mr. Liu scaled a wall and escaped through a hole. He looked at himself and found that he was on his belly in the lush grass—strange but true, a snake!

  He swore that he would harm no living thing but would satisfy his hunger with fruits and vegetables. For more than a year he lived in this way, pining to kill himself but understanding that it would be unwise, just as it would be unwise for him to injure someone and get himself killed. He could not find a suitable way to die. One day as he was lying in the grass, he heard a carriage coming and rushed into the road in front of it. The wheels crushed him and cut him in two.

  His speedy return amazed the king of the dead. The snake lay prostrate and told his story. The king, because the creature had been innocent when killed, forgave him and judged that he had fulfilled his sentence and could be reborn human. And so he became the scholar Liu who begins our story.

  When Mr. Liu was born, he could speak. He could recite literary works, essays, and histories after only one reading, and soon he earned his advanced degree. Yet he was always urging people to put a thick pad under their horse’s saddle, for a heel dug into the flank is worse punishment for a horse than the whip.

  The Recorder of Things Strange says: Creatures with fur or horns include princes and lords. This is so, just as there are things furred or horned among princes and lords. For the lowly to do good deeds is like planting a tree to produce flowers. For the noble to do good deeds is like nourishing a tree that has already blossomed. What is planted should grow larger; what is nourished should last long. Otherwise, one hauls the salt wagon and suffers the fetters as a horse, or feeds on filth only to be cut up and cooked as a dog, or, clad in scales, dies in the claws of crane or stork as a snake.

  —P’u Sung-ling

  The Monk from Everclear

  Having led a life of lofty purity, a certain monk from Everclear in Shantung province was still hale at the age of eighty. But one day he fell over and did not rise. Although the monks of the temple rushed to his aid, he had already passed into the world beyond.

  The monk himself, unaware that he was dead, floated away with his soul intact until he reached the faraway borders of Honan province. In Honan at that moment, a young man of the upper classes was leading a team of horsemen who were using hawks to hunt for hares. His horse bolted, and the young man fell off and died. By chance his soul encountered that of the old monk, and the two joined as one.

  After a while the young man gradually recovered consciousness. His servants surrounded him solicitously as he opened his eyes and asked, “How did I get here?” They helped him home, where an assembly of beautiful women greeted him with expressions of concern. “I am a monk!” he cried. “What am I doing here?” The members of the household thought he had lost his mind and earnestly tried to make him understand that he had been in an accident. The monk made no further attempt to explain himself; he simply shut his eyes and would not speak again.

  They fed him husked rice, which he took; but he refused both wine and meat. At night he slept alone and would not accept the services of wife or concubine. After a few days he thought of going for a short walk. Everyone was delighted. He stepped out, but when he paused for a moment, a stream of attendants approached him with financial accounts to check over. He refused to deal with these matters, claiming that he was still too weak from his illness. All he said was, “In Shantung there is an Everclear county. Do you know of it?” The attendants replied that they did, and he said, “I feel depressed and at a loss for anything to do. It would please me to go there for a visit; let’s get ready now.” His servants said that he had just recovered and was not well enough for a long trip, but he would not listen.

  The next day he set out. When he arrived in Everclear, the place was as he remembered it. Without asking the way he went directly to the monastery, and the disciples greeted their distinguished guest with deference. “Where has your old monk gone to?” he asked. They replied, “Our master has gone the way of all things.” The visitor asked where the grave was, and the puzzled disciples led him to a solitary three-foot mound not yet overgrown with wild grass.

  Soon the young man mounted his horse for the return journey. “Your master was a monk of discipline, and the order that he established here should not be disturbed,” he told them. The monks nodded continuously as he left.

  Back in his household, the young man’s mind went dead as ash. He sat in meditation like a withered tree, refusing to attend to any family responsibilities. And after several months he walked out of the house and disappeared.

  He returned to the old monastery and said to the disciples, “I am none other than your master.” Thinking him demented, the monks looked at one another and laughed. But when he told them the circumstances of his return to life, and when he spoke of events during the old monk’s lifetime, everything tallied. The monks believed him and installed him in his former quarters, serving him as they always had.

  The young man’s family discovered where he was and often sent horse and carriage to the monastery with an earnest appeal for him to come home. He paid no attention to them. After a year his wife sent his steward to the monastery with many gifts, but he refused all the gold and silk and accepted only a single cloth robe. Friends who came to the district called on him to pay their respects and found him reticent and wise for his years. Though he was only thirty, he could vividly describe the events of eight decades.

  The Recorder of Things Strange says: When a man dies, his spirit disperses. If a spirit should travel a thousand leagues and still remain whole, it is because that soul’s nature is unalterable. It is not astonishing that such a strong-minded monk should come back to life; it is more surprising that on entering a state of magnificent luxury, he was still able to sever his ties and turn from the world. How different from those ordinary men who fall in the twinkling of an eye and stain their moral record so deeply that they’d be better off dead!

  —P’u Sung-ling

  The Monk’s Sins

  When a man named Chang died suddenly, an underworld officer took him down to see the king of the dead. The king checked the records and was angry to learn that the officer had made a false arrest. He ordered the ghost to take Chang back to the living.

  When Chang was released, he persuaded the ghost to let him see the prisons of hell. The ghost led him through the Nine Abysses, the Hill of Knives, and the Sword Trees, pointing out each thing of note. Toward the end of the tour they came to a place where a monk was hanging head down, legs bound and laced with ropes. The monk howled with pain, as if he were about to die. As he drew closer Chang saw that it was his own elder brother. Horrified and anguished, Chang asked the ghost what crimes the monk was suffering for.

  “This one was a Buddhist monk,” said the ghost. “He was taking money from all sides to pay for women and gambling. That’s why we’ve punished him. We won’t let him down till he repents.”

  Then Chang came back to life and began to wonder if his brother had already died. To find out, he hurried to his brother’s home in the Temple of Blessings. He entered the gates and heard howls of pain. In one of the rooms he found his brother, whose legs, covered with welts, were propped against a wall and oozing blood and pus. Chang asked his brother why he kept his legs in that position.

  “For relief,” replied the monk. “Otherwise the pain goes right through me.” Then Chang told him what he had seen in the world of the dead. The monk was terrified and not only abandoned his major vices but even forswore meat and wine. He recited sutras and mantras with great reverence. Within two weeks he was well again and thereafter became a model of self-discipline.

  The Recorder of Things Strange says: Hell, or the dungeons of the dead, is a myth, never verified. At least, men of vicious character justify themselves by saying that there is no punishment f
or our misdeeds. What they fail to understand is that the disasters which strike us in our own daylight world are the punishment of the Unseen.

  —P’u Sung-ling

  The Truth About Ghosts

  Ch’en Tsai-heng of my city was sixty years old, a gentle, genial, and humorous man. He was walking at day’s end on the outskirts of the city when he saw two men carrying a fire in a lantern. He tried to light his pipe from the fire but could not manage it. One of the men said to him, “Have you passed your first ‘post mortem’ week yet?” Amazed, Ch’en replied simply, “Not yet.”

  “That explains it,” the man said. “Your ‘sun-time spirits’ are not yet used up, so the ‘shade-time’ fire won’t give you a light.”

  Realizing that he was speaking with the dead, Ch’en pretended to be one also. “The world claims that men fear ghosts; is that true?” he asked them.

  “Not at all,” replied one of the ghosts. “The truth is that ghosts fear men.”

  “What is it about men that could frighten a ghost?” asked Ch’en.

  “Saliva.”

  At once Ch’en took a deep breath and spat at them. The two ghosts retreated three paces. Glaring, they said angrily, “Then you are not a ghost!”

  Ch’en laughed. “In fact, not to deceive you, I am a man who is near to a ghost—near enough to spit on you.” This he did again, and each ghost contracted to half its former size. He spat a third time and they vanished.

  —Huang Chün-tsai

  Sung Ting-po Catches a Ghost

  When Sung Ting-po of Nanyang was walking one night, he ran across a dead soul. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “A ghost,” it replied, and added, “Who are you?”

  “A ghost, too,” said Sung Ting-po to mislead it.

  “Where are you headed?” asked the ghost.

  “Yüan market town.”

  “So am I.”

  And so they proceeded. After several miles the ghost said, “We have quite a way to go. How about taking turns carrying each other?”

  “Fine,” answered Sung Ting-po.

  To begin with, the ghost carried Sung Ting-po on his shoulders for several miles. “You are so heavy, good friend,” the ghost commented, “that I’m wondering if you really are a ghost.”

  “I’m a new ghost,” replied Sung Ting-po, “so my body is still heavy.” And Sung Ting-po took his turn carrying the ghost, which was practically weightless. They went on this way exchanging places a number of times.

  “I’m a new ghost,” Sung Ting-po remarked again, “so I’m not familiar with what ghosts fear and avoid.”

  “Human saliva,” replied the ghost. And the two continued on their way. Soon they came to a stream that they had to cross, and Sung Ting-po asked the ghost to go first. It waded in and made no sound. But when Sung Ting-po followed, his body swished through the water, and the ghost asked, “How come you’re making that racket?”

  “It’s just that the newly dead aren’t used to crossing water. Don’t hold it against me.”

  The two were approaching their destination, and it was Sung Ting-po’s turn to carry the ghost. He set it upon his shoulders and then suddenly tightened his grip. The ghost cried, “Hey! Hey!” as it struggled to get down. But Sung Ting-po held fast. He marched straight into the Yüan market, and there he set it down. As the ghost touched the ground it turned into a sheep, which Sung put up for sale. Fearing that it might change itself again, he spat on it. He got 1,500 coppers for the sheep and went on his way.

  This is a true story: a chronicle of the time says, “Sung Ting-po sold a ghost for 1,500 coppers.”

  —Kan Pao

  The Man Who Couldn’t Catch a Ghost

  My father heard this story from his grandfather.

  In the city of Ching there was a man named Ch’iang San-mang. He was bold and direct, with no subtlety to him. One day he heard a man tell how Sung Ting-po had caught a ghost, and how the ghost had turned itself into a sheep to escape, and how Sung Ting-po had sold it and spat on it to prevent it from changing again.

  Ch’iang San-mang was overjoyed. “Now I’m sure that ghosts can be captured,” he said. “If I could get one every night and turn it into a sheep, then the next morning I could bring it to the butcher’s and supply myself with meat and drink for the day.”

  Every night thereafter he shouldered a club and, rope in hand, crept among the graves like a hunter stalking a rabbit. But he never came across anything. Places that everyone called haunted turned out to be barren, though once he even pretended to be in a drunken sleep to dare the ghosts to do their worst.

  One evening he saw a few flares across the forest and rushed to the spot, but the lights dispersed like so many sparks before he arrived. After a month of this frustration, he gave up.

  It would seem that the dead frighten men simply by exploiting their fear. Ch’iang San-mang was convinced that a ghost could be caught and tied up, and his fearlessness was enough to scare them off.

  —Chi Yün

  Ai Tzu and the Temple Ghost

  Ai Tzu was traveling by water, and on his way he saw a temple. The temple was low and small, but it had a dignity that was impressive. In front of it ran a little ditch. As Ai Tzu watched, a man who was on foot reached the ditch but could not get across. So the man looked into the temple, grabbed a statue of the temple god, and placed it over the ditch. Then he stepped on the statue and went his way.

  Another man came, saw the statue, and sighed, “Oh! for the holy image to be treated with such disrespect!” He righted the statue, rubbed it clean with his clothes, and set it reverently back in place. He bowed three times and went his way.

  Moments later, Ai Tzu heard a little ghost in the temple speaking to the statue. “My Lord, you reside here as a god. You enjoy the offerings and rites of the villagers. Now this brute has insulted you; shouldn’t you bring disaster down on him to teach him a lesson?”

  “If there are to be any disasters,” the temple god answered, “they will descend upon the second man.”

  “The first man walked on you; what greater insult is there?” said the small ghost. “Yet you will not ruin him. The second man showed respect for you, my Lord, and yet you want to ruin him. Why?”

  “The first man,” said the temple god, “no longer has faith, and I can no longer ruin him.”

  “True it is,” said Ai Tzu, “that the gods fear the wicked.”

  —Attributed to Su Shih

  Escaping Ghosts

  Legend has it that many spooks and apparitions have plagued passersby near High Top Bridge in Hangchow. Once a solitary traveler was caught by a rainstorm there. Suddenly, convinced that the traveler was a ghost, another man under an umbrella charged toward him and forced the traveler off the bridge and into the water. Then the man fled until, seeing a light in the bathhouse east of the bridge, he hurried in for shelter.

  Afterward the traveler arrived, also drenched. Panting, he said, “A ghost carrying an umbrella forced me into the river, and I nearly drowned.” “I saw the same ghost!” the first man said. Eyeing one another, the two slowly realized their mistake.

  On another night of storm and drizzle, a man who had no lamp was crossing the bridge when he heard the sound of clogs behind him. Turning, he saw a large head on a body some two feet tall. He stopped to gape; the head also stopped. When he went on, the head went on. When he ran, the head ran. Panicking, the man flew to the bathhouse and pushed open the door. But before he could close it again, the head entered.

  Faint from terror, the man lifted candle and saw a boy wearing a pot against the rain. Because he was afraid of ghosts, the child had followed the man for protection.

  —Lang Ying

  Test of Conviction

  Shih Hsü, an important general in Kiangsi, was a man skilled in logical reasoning. One of his students also held rational views and had always expressed the conviction that ghosts do not exist.

  One day the student had an unexpected visitor, who was dressed in black clothes
with white lapels. Their conversation touched on many subjects and eventually turned to ghosts about which the student and the stranger held contrary opinions. After a day of arguing, the visitor, having been bested, said, “Good sir, you are more than clever with words, but your reasoning is not perfect. For I myself am a ghost! Now how can you argue that there are none?”

  “Why have you come?” asked the student.

  “I have been assigned to take you. Your time expires tomorrow at dinner time.”

  When the student pleaded in distress, the ghost said, “Do you know anyone who resembles you?”

  “Yes, in Shih Hsü’s command there’s an officer who resembles me.”

  The ghost and the student went together to visit the officer. They sat down opposite him. Then the ghost took an iron pick about a foot long, set the point on the top of the officer’s head, and began to pound it with a hammer.

  “I feel some pain in my head,” said the officer. Soon the pain became severe, and within an hour the officer was dead.

  —Kan Pao

  Drinking Companions

  A fisherman named Hsü made his home outside the north gate of Tzu, a township in present-day Shantung. Every night he took along some wine to the riverside to drink while he fished. And each time, he poured a little offering on the ground “so that the spirits of those who have drowned in the river may have some wine too.” When other fishermen had caught nothing, Hsü usually went home with a basketful.