Hey guys! I hope you had a great week!
This will be my last post dealing with Chinese mythology for a while.
For this post, I wanted to look at one of the stories from Chinese
folktales in which not all is as it seems to be. Let's look at the
story first, and then I'll talk about it afterward.
China is a huge country, and in olden days travelers would have to
walk for days or more to get between towns. Because of this,
pavilions were built alongside roads – think of them as a sort of
motel. Whoever owned the pavilion would provide a meal for a weary
traveler, and they could sleep inside it before continuing on their
journey the next day. Sounds nice, right?
Unfortunately, there was one pavilion in which no one wanted to sleep. It was...haunted.
Anyone who slept within that pavilion was found dead the next morning, an expression of terrible agony contorting their face. Because of this, travelers sensibly began to avoid the pavilion.
Until one day, when a traveling scholar happened along. He was warned by the couple who managed the pavilion that it was haunted. The tales were told to him, and the scholar was pressed to move on, to find somewhere else to sleep.
Instead of being afraid, the scholar was intrigued. He decided to stay in the pavilion overnight to see if he could solve the mystery. The pavilion's managers tried to talk him out of it, but his mind was made up.
So they brought him food and then hastily retreated back to the safety of their own home. The scholar ate his meal and then settled down with a book. Darkness fell.
Quite a while after night had fallen, the scholar's reading was interrupted by footsteps outside. He could just barely see someone garbed all in black approaching the front of the pavilion. They stopped, and called out a greeting to the master of the pavilion. From inside, a voice returned the greeting. The mysterious guest asked who it was staying inside the pavilion, and the pavilion master responded that it was a scholar...but, unfortunately, he was reading and still awake. The strange guest let out a sigh of disappointment and left.
The scholar, now more cautious than he had been, returned to his book.
Some time later another figure, this one wearing a red hat, approached the pavilion. It too greeted the pavilion master, and inquired as to the man within. Like the first, it let out a sigh of disappointment and left when it heard that the scholar was still awake.
Once the second figure had gone, the scholar crept outside of the pavilion. He approached the front and called out a greeting to the master of the pavilion. Like the others had done, the scholar inquired as to who was “inside” the pavilion, and was told that it was a scholar who was reading and, unfortunately, still awake.
The scholar sighed like the others, but then he changed the dialogue. He asked who the figure in black had been, and the pavilion master replied that it had been the black sow who lived in a house nearby. When asked who the figure in the red hat was, the pavilion master responded that it was the rooster from yet another house. The scholar then asked who the pavilion master himself was, and was told that it was the old scorpion who lived within the pavilion.
The scholar snuck back to his spot in the pavilion, and was very careful to not fall asleep for the remainder of the night.
When the humans who ran the pavilion approached in the morning, they were shocked to find the scholar still alive. Their surprise grew when he asked for a sword, saying that he could solve all of their problems. He had figured out who was haunting the pavilion.
The sword was brought, and the scholar got down to business. He went first to one corner of the pavilion, where the manager's voice had seemed to emanate from. Inside a crack in the wall was a massive, angry scorpion, who was swiftly killed by the scholar. Next he went to two houses in the village. At one he killed a black sow, and at another he butchered a red-crested rooster.
The scholar explained his actions to the villagers, telling them how the demons had identified themselves. From that day on, the pavilion was no longer haunted. No more travelers died there, and it was once again a safe haven for those on the road.
And that's the story!
There are a lot of tales in Chinese mythology in which humans (or demons) are not what they seem to be – but rather are animals in disguise. We've already talked about the Heavenly Maidens, who can take the form of a crane or of a human. Unlike some other stories, these women are wed by men who know exactly what they are. There are stories of beautiful girls who are wooed and married, only for their husbands to later find out that they're foxes in disguise. Though the foxes often love their mortal husbands, these tales often end in tragedy. Then there are stories where a creature – a massive snake, for instance – takes human form and seduces a mortal to achieve her own ends.
I hope you guys enjoyed this look at Chinese mythology! I know I
did. I'll see you next week!
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