But the extra Nine are false or delusive and mere reflections of the true sun on fog or vapor. The Chinese account, truly enough, states that they bear wu, and this term stands for "blackness," "inky," or "dark" (Williams dict. p. 1058.)
This identical term wu also stands for black or dark fowls, such as the raven, blackbird, and crow; and one Oriental scholar, dwelling indeed in Japan, assures us that each of the Nine Suns bears a Crow! We are seriously informed, that "all bear—literally cause to ride—a Crow" (note 7.)
As well might it be asserted that because wu signifies "black," the Nine Wu borne by the Suns must be nine blacks or negroes! The supposition that Nine Crows are meant is absurd and contradicted by the luminaries themselves.
Figure 2. Our Continental American Tree.
Strange to say, the "luminaries" emit no radiance! The light that is in them is darkness, and they are fitting symbols for commentators—black, white, yellow, and green—who have written learnedly and positively on them without understanding a thing about them. Perhaps it might be well, apart from its inconvenience, when writing about any nation, place, or natural object, to ascertain the position and name of the continent in which the subject of study is situated. Of course we are not so unreasonable as to insist that we must really comprehend a matter before getting up to explain it to others, but the positions of continents dealt with ought, as a rule, to be clearly ascertained. In the present instance we have faithfully followed the ancient directions and groped our way into the presence of the Nine blind suns. Gazing at their beaming disks we perceive how the term wu (black or dark) applies to them. The color of Crows is there, but not the living birds themselves. It is the story of the Three Black Crows advanced another stage on its career of misrepresentation, and magnified Threefold. The Nine Suns have neither swallowed nor disgorged Nine Black Crows. But they are certainly open to the charge of having feasted too freely on diet no less dark and deceptive.
They're the color of Crows, say the Ancients.
They bear Nine Crows, say the Moderns.
The truth is that the false suns furnish neither heat nor light and really consist of dark (wu) vapor.
The Nine are mere reflections of the low-declined, true sun on "surrounding" frozen haze or mist, in extremely cold weather. When this icy fog seems—merely seems, of course,—to touch and surround the true sun, the illusions known as false suns are apt to appear. They obey some optical code of laws or signals understood best perhaps by themselves, and will sometimes disappear in a moment like a flock of timid "sun birds" (or wild geese—see note 8.) Their design apparently is to cheer and escort their illustrious sire in his otherwise lonesome trip through a frozen, desolate zone. Some Chinese accounts call them "children"—"children of the sun," etc., etc.