THE WONDERFUL BIRD, LIKE A FIRE OF MANY COLOURS COME DOWN FROM HEAVEN, ALIGHTED BEFORE THE PRINCESS, DROPPING AT HER FEET THE PORTRAIT
THE
STORY OF THE BIRD FENG
A FAIRY TALE FROM CHINA
In the Book of the Ten Thousand Wonders there are three hundred and thirty-three stories about the bird called Feng, and this is one of them.
Ta-Khai, Prince of Tartary, dreamt one night that he saw in a place where he had never been before an enchantingly beautiful young maiden who could only be a princess. He fell desperately in love with her, but before he could either move or speak, she had vanished. When he awoke he called for his ink and brushes, and, in the most accomplished willow-leaf style, he drew her image on a piece of precious silk, and in one corner he wrote these lines:
The flowers of the pæony
Will they ever bloom?
A day without her
Is like a hundred years.
He then summoned his ministers, and, showing them the portrait, asked if any one could tell him the name of the beautiful maiden; but they all shook their heads and stroked their beards. They knew not who she was.