The Chinese Fairy Book - Unknown

PREFACE

The fairy tales and legends of olden China have in common with the “Thousand and One Nights” an oriental glow and glitter of precious stones and gold and multicolored silks, an oriental wealth of fantastic and supernatural action. And yet they strike an exotic note distinct in itself. The seventy-three stories here presented after original sources, embracing “Nursery Fairy Tales,” “Legends of the Gods,” “Tales of Saints and Magicians,” “Nature and Animal Tales,” “Ghost Stories,” “Historic Fairy Tales,” and “Literary Fairy Tales,” probably represent the most comprehensive and varied collection of oriental fairy tales ever made available for American readers. There is no child who will not enjoy their novel color, their fantastic beauty, their infinite variety of subject. Yet, like the “Arabian Nights,” they will amply repay the attention of the older reader as well. Some are exquisitely poetic, such as “The Flower-Elves,” “The Lady of the Moon” or “The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden”; others like “How Three Heroes Came By Their Deaths Because Of Two Peaches,” carry us back dramatically and powerfully to the Chinese age of Chivalry. The summits of fantasy are scaled in the quasi-religious dramas of “The Ape Sun Wu Kung” and “Notscha,” or the weird sorceries unfolded in “The Kindly Magician.” Delightful ghost stories, with happy endings, such as “A Night on the Battlefield” and “The Ghost Who Was Foiled,” are paralleled with such idyllic love-tales as that of “Rose of Evening,” or such Lilliputian fancies as “The King of the Ants” and “The Little Hunting Dog.” It is quite safe to say that these Chinese fairy tales will give equal pleasure to the old as well as the young. They have been retold simply, with no changes in style or expression beyond such details of presentation which differences between oriental and occidental viewpoints at times compel. It is the writer’s hope that others may take as much pleasure in reading them as he did in their translation.

Fredrick H. Martens.

PAGE
	Preface	[v]
NURSERY FAIRY TALES
CHAPTER
I	Women’s Words Part Flesh and Blood	[1]
II	The Three Rhymsters	[4]
III	How Greed for a Trifling Thing Led a Man to Lose a Great One	[6]
IV	Who Was the Sinner?	[9]
V	The Magic Cask	[10]
VI	The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck	[11]
VII	The Bird with Nine Heads	[13]
VIII	The Cave of the Beasts	[17]
IX	The Panther	[20]
X	The Great Flood	[24]
XI	The Fox and the Tiger	[27]
XII	The Tiger’s Decoy	[28]
XIII	The Fox and the Raven	[29]
XIV	Why Dog and Cat are Enemies	[30]
LEGENDS OF THE GODS
XV	How the Five Ancients Became Men	[35]
XVI	The Herd Boy and the Weaving Maiden	[37]
XVII	Yang Oerlang	[42]
XVIII	Notscha	[44]
XIX	The Lady of the Moon	[53]
XX	The Morning and the Evening Star	[55]
XXI	The Girl with the Horse’s Head or the Silkworm Goddess	[56]
XXII	The Queen of Heaven	[58]
XXIII	The Fire-God	[61]
XXIV	The Three Ruling Gods	[62]
XXV	A Legend of Confucius	[64]
XXVI	The God of War	[66]
TALES OF SAINTS AND MAGICIANS
XXVII	The Halos of the Saints	[71]
XXVIII	Laotsze	[73]
XXIX	The Ancient Man	[75]
XXX	The Eight Immortals (I)	[76]
XXXI	The Eight Immortals (II)	[82]
XXXII	The Two Scholars	[84]
XXXIII	The Miserly Farmer	[88]
XXXIV	Sky O’Dawn	[90]
XXXV	King Mu of Dschou	[95]
XXXVI	The King of Huai Nan	[99]
XXXVII	Old Dschang	[102]
XXXVIII	The Kindly Magician	[107]
NATURE AND ANIMAL TALES
XXXIX	The Flower-Elves	[119]
XL	The Spirit of the Wu-Lian Mountain	[124]
XLI	The King of the Ants	[125]
XLII	The Little Hunting Dog	[127]
XLIII	The Dragon After His Winter Sleep	[130]
XLIV	The Spirits of the Yellow River	[131]
XLV	The Dragon-Princess	[137]
XLVI	Help in Need	[142]
XLVII	The Disowned Princess	[151]
XLVIII	Fox-Fire	[161]
GHOST STORIES
XLIX	The Talking Silver Foxes	[165]
L	The Constable	[168]
LI	The Dangerous Reward	[174]
LII	Retribution	[177]
LIII	The Ghost Who Was Foiled	[180]
LIV	The Punishment of Greed	[184]
LV	The Night on the Battlefield	[186]
LVI	The Kingdom of the Ogres	[189]
LVII	The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away	[196]
LVIII	The Flying Ogre	[199]
LIX	Black Arts	[201]
HISTORIC LEGENDS
LX	The Sorcerer of the White Lotus Lodge	[209]
LXI	The Three Evils	[212]
LXII	How Three Heroes Came By Their Deaths Because of Two Peaches	[215]
LXIII	How the River God’s Wedding Was Broken Off	[218]
LXIV	Dschang Liang	[220]
LXV	Old Dragonbeard	[223]
LXVI	How Molo Stole the Lovely Rose-Red	[231]
LXVII	The Golden Canister	[235]
LXVIII	Yang Gui Fe	[240]
LXIX	The Monk of the Yangtze-Kiang	[243]
LITERARY FAIRY TALES
LXX	The Heartless Husband	[251]
LXXI	Giauna the Beautiful	[261]
LXXII	The Frog Princess	[271]
LXXIII	Rose of Evening	[280]
LXXIV	The Ape Sun Wu Kung	[288]

PREFACE

CONTENTS