X.—SERPENTS, DRAGONS, FABULOUS ANIMALS AND MONSTERS.

That evil spirits or human beings compelled by enchantment can assume the form of snakes, is a deeply-rooted belief, as is also its converse that mysteriously-gifted serpents can at will present themselves to the public eye as ordinary mortals. In the “Thunder-peak Pagoda” novel, already referred to, we find the heroine of the story to be a white snake who possesses the power of assuming the human form. In the Cavern of the Winds situated on the Green Mountain near Ching-to-foo in Sze-chuan “there was,” says the story, “reputed to be a monstrous white female serpent, who had been there from time immemorial. In this cave also grew strange flowers and wonderful shrubs. This serpent had existed for eighteen hundred years, and had never yet done harm to any living thing. On account of her great age, this white serpent had attained to a vast degree of knowledge, and was able to work marvellous spells, and to take the form of a woman, in which condition she adopted the name of Pĭ-cheu-niang.” Her servant, like herself, was a serpent and the scene in which the two are for the first time introduced to each other is described in a way worthy of the Arabian nights:—

“Hang-chow is a most beautiful place. The residences of princes and nobles are here, and beautiful flower gardens and ancient temples are scattered all over the place. Among these, the garden of Prince Chow was pre-eminent for beauty; but Prince Chow had long been dead, and his beautiful garden was deserted by mankind. In it were altars, pavilions, and mountains almost equalling in splendour the gardens of the imperial palace. Here there resided a huge black serpent, which had been in this place for more than eight hundred years,—and could also ascend into the clouds, and take the human form; and when she saw the white serpent coming in, she hurried to prevent her entrance, saying, “Whence comest thou thus to invade the privacy of my garden? Dost thou not fear my wrath?” The white serpent, who had assumed the human form, as had the other, merely smiled, and said, “Don’t talk about your power, but pay attention to what I am going to say—I am a powerful white serpent, come from the mountain cavern of the winds, where I have resided more than eighteen hundred years; but because I am not so powerful as I could wish, I have determined to change my abode, wherefore you must let me take up my residence in this garden—besides this, why should we quarrel, being both spirits in the form of serpents?” But the black snake was not so easily pacified, and angrily exclaimed, “This is my garden, and you are a spirit from some distant place—How then do you dare thus to deprive me of mine own? If, moreover, you think yourself more powerful than I am, let us contend together three times for the mastery.” The white serpent smiled slightly, and said, “It is no desire of mine that we should contend together, as I do not wish to injure one of my species; but since you so much wish it, I will contend with you, but upon this condition only that whoever shall be victorious in the strife, shall become the mistress, and that the conquered one shall always act as a slave.

The adventures of those two serpent women and the scrapes into which an unlucky attachment for the mistress led the hero of the tale, form the principal features of the plot. I cannot, of course, here follow that out; suffice it to say that the enchantress brought grief to all connected with her. But the story presents certain analogies with an old English legend that are worth noting. The “worm of Spindlestone Heugh” in Northumberland, was, so the legend says, a beautiful girl transformed by her step-mother into a loathsome serpent, until her brother should come to her rescue from beyond the seas. This of course he eventually does, and the charm is broken.

“He quitted his sword, and bent his bow,

He gave her kisses three;

She crept into her hole a worme

“Ugly and venomous, wears a precious jewel in his head,”

may have been suggested by this popular belief, though now interpreted to apply only to the beautiful eye with which the animal is endowed?

The transition from the serpent to the dragon is easy, but appears to have followed much the same rule in China as in England—there being a considerable amount of confusion in the legendary lore of both countries between the two animals. It is indeed somewhat difficult to exactly say where fact left off, and fancy commenced, to contribute to the popular portrait of the dragon. China does, in fact, produce an animal—a harmless species of lizard,—which may well have sat as the original of the native monster; but its small size (only some two feet from nose to tail) deprives it of any ferocious semblance. Looking at the widespread belief in dragons there seems little doubt that the semi-myth of to-day is the traditional successor of a really once existent animal, whose huge size, snake-like appearance and, possibly, dangerous powers of offence made him so terrible that the earlier races of mankind adopted him unanimously as the most fearful embodiment of animal ferocity to be found.

“This dragon had two furious wings

One upon each shoulder,

With a sting in his tayle, as long as a flayle,

Which made him bolder and bolder.

He had long claws, and in his jaws

Four and forty teeth of iron,

With a hide as tough, as any buff,

Which did him round environ.”

In no case however does it seem more absurd than when we find it gravely noticed in official documents. Thus a year or two since an Edict published in the Peking Gazette stated as follows:—“Li Hung-chang has addressed to us a memorial, stating that the River Yung-ting has filled its channel, reporting for punishment the officials who were engaged on the works, and requesting the appropriate discipline on himself. He states that much rain fell for several weeks in succession this year, and the waters in river and lake rose to an unwonted height. The officers responsible worked day and night to avert danger by opening and shutting sluices and strengthening works. On the 4th and 5th July the rain came down in bucketfuls, and it became utterly impossible to do anything; the river overflowed in several places. Li Hung-chang last year reported that he had caged the dragon, and it is therefore an inexcusable fault that, in so short a time afterwards, even allowing several weeks’ rain, the river should have broken out!” It would be difficult to come across more convincing proof that the supernatural powers of the dragon over the phenomena of nature were fully believed in.

Domestic dragon worship again is familiar to every native. The author of the paper above referred to gives curious details of the ceremonies observed in worshipping dragon-spirits. Every hill and mountain is supposed to be inhabited by them, and whenever a new house is to be erected, a Fêng-shui geomancer is consulted to learn if the location be within the range of friendly dragon spirits. The house on being completed has a niche fitted up in it as a shrine for the individual dragon which protects the destinies of the house. He is installed with considerable ceremony, and the shrine is worshipped at the same periods as sacrifices or prayers are offered in the Ancestral Hall. In the case of houses which have been built for the space of one hundred years (at the expiration of which period the original virtue and efficiency of the tutelary dragon is supposed to need reinvigoration) more elaborate ceremonials are necessary. Three days are devoted to preparation, and on the fourth the exorcism of evil influences commences. This consists in magical incantations mumbled in unintelligible language, accompanied by offerings of frankincense, wine and paper, the whole accompanied by the beatings of drums and gongs and the blowing of a horn. The chief wizard then dips his arm into boiling oil or performs some similar feat to justify his claims as an exorcist, one of the commonest being to walk unharmed through an enormous fire of blazing charcoal. Another performance consists in ascending a ladder of swords. One or all of these being accomplished, the wizard repairs, attended by the neighbours, to the nearest hill and invokes the dragon spirit to return, and after announcing his arrival professes to entice him back to the house. The curious reader will find the ceremonies described at length in the article from which this is summarized.

The following dragon legend was communicated to the same periodical by Mr. T. Sampson of Canton, and is worth preservation: “It is a common expression in Canton, to say that extremely violent gusts of wind during a typhoon are caused by the passage of a tün mi lung 斷尾龍 or “bob-tail dragon,” and it is sometimes averred that this animal is actually seen on such occasions passing through the air; generally however it is, among educated people, nothing more than an expression signifying a violent gust of wind, and the story connected with it, if known at all beyond the district of Sun-ui where it has a local circulation, is classed with such fables as that of the great sea serpent which was so long that when at rest a junk had to sail for several days to traverse its length, and which, on being cut in two by a steamer, was several hours in discovering the fact, in consequence of the immense length of the nerves which had to convey to the brain the sense of the injury inflicted.

“The story however of Ah-Tseung and the dragon, as narrated to me by a native of Sun-ui, is as follows: In ancient times there was a certain studious rustic whose name was Ah-Tseung, but whose surname has unfortunately not been handed down for the benefit of posterity; this youth having found a young snake took it home with him, and as long as he lived it was his chief delight to nurture this animal; he made a nest for it in his book-case, and after every meal he secretly conveyed food to it; it shared his bed, and was his constant companion; the boy for a long time kept the matter secret from his parents, but his teacher having observed his many visits to the book-case, wished to find out what was the attraction, and on opening it he observed to his great surprise and alarm, a huge snake filling one of the shelves, for by this time the snake had become full grown. A few months after this Ah-Tseung died, whereupon his parents drove the snake away to the neighbouring hills; on every occasion of ceremonial mourning held by the parents, and on every anniversary of his death, the snake visited the home of his departed friend, and after going several times round the house returned again to the hills; the neighbours felt a natural repugnance to these periodical visits, and remonstrated with Ah Tseung’s mother, who herself anxious to get rid of so unwelcome a visitor, forbade the snake coming to her house any more; heedless of this command the snake did return; whereupon the mother, with the intention of frightening it away, brandished a knife at it in a threatening manner, but in doing so the knife accidentally came in contact with the animal’s tail and severed off several joints of it. After this the snake never returned; it retired however to the Kwai-fung-shàn in the district of Sun-ui, where there is a lake of about a mau (⅓d of an acre) in extent and of unfathomable depth; indeed it is asserted by the inhabitants of the neighborhood, that its waters communicate subterraneously with one of the mouths of the great rivers of Kwangtung, the Ngaimun, and that any substance thrown into the lake will reappear in the ocean near that embouchure. In and round this lake Ah Tseung’s snake has lived to the present day, and its appearance on the distant hill top, sometimes as a man clothed in white, and sometimes as a white dragon (an instance of progressive development without natural selection, its flight through the air causing dragonic development from the pristine type of an ordinary snake), or the foaming disturbance of the waters of the lake when he indulges in a bath, are considered sure indications of an approaching storm.

“Such is the story of Ah Tseung and the dragon. Fabulous as it undoubtedly is, there may nevertheless be, as is often the case with the most outrageous fables, a grain of scientific truth in it; the range of hills in Sun-ui of which the Kwei-fung-shan forms a part, must exert some influence on typhoons; they are in the track of these circular storms, and probably their height effects an attractive influence over them, and their conformation diverts the course of the storm as it impinges upon them. Hence the fact in the natural history of typhoons, that they, owing to these causes, frequently pass over Sun-ui and disturb the waters of the lake in the Kwai-fung hills before they reach other parts of the common delta of the Kwangtung river, may be the grain of scientific truth which has given rise to the story of Ah Tseung and the dragon with an abbreviated caudal extremity.”

“Other versions of this history may exist, but the above is the only one I have met with. The occurrence of a female as the hero is somewhat remarkable, but in other respects the fact that filial piety and dexterity in stratagems replace in the Chinese legend the masculine purity and dauntless courage with which our own traditions invest St. George, as also the minuteness in detail of the events recorded, are highly characteristic of the Chinese turn of mind. In any case, this is probably the earliest existing version of the famous legend.”

So much for dragons, dismissed perhaps with almost too scant notice, but scarcely needing more elaborate discussion. The third heading of the present chapter refers to fabulous animals of another description, and of these Chinese folk-lore presents us with a fair variety. The Phœnix, for instance, enjoys its classical reputation amongst the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom, while tigers, monkeys and elephants also enjoy the reputation of a wisdom which goes beyond instinct and more than verges on the domain of humanity. Tailed men and mermaids furnish native tradition-mongers with numerous stories; and the unicorn of Chinese myth-land is to all intents and purposes identical with the celebrated animal mentioned in our nursery rhyme, relating how

“The lion and the Unicorn

Went fighting for the Crown;”

An animal occupying an intermediate position between fact and fiction—its existence being the one, and its alleged qualities the other—is known as the Sing-sing 猩猩, a very large species of baboon found in Cambodia. Its blood is supposed in China to be useful as a dye; but inasmuch as it of course dries up if the animal is killed, the Chinese allege that artifice is resorted to by hunters to induce it to submit to the process of bleeding, and the natives quaintly describe the (very imaginative) operation. The story is evidently the production of some Chinese Æsop, containing as it does an admirable satire on the temptations of the wine cup. But, nevertheless, the animal is really believed by the vulgar to possess supernatural powers. The account given is as follows:—“The Sing-sing is remarkably fond of wine; so the blood-hunters lay a trap for him thus:—Having found the tracks he frequents, they place in some position where he is sure to see them a pailful of some intoxicating liquid and a cup, and then conceal themselves in the vicinity. After a time the Sing-sing discovers the pail; but after inspecting it mutters, ‘Ah! this is put here by the blood hunters, but I shan’t be fool enough to drink it; it’s nothing but poison.’ Moving away for a short time it presently returns, observing, ‘After all wine is a good thing in itself, if one doesn’t take too much; it’s very nice, and I shall just try one cup.’ The animal accordingly takes one cupful and walks away, soon however returning for a second and a third, finally drinking itself helpless. The hunters then seize it and place it in a cage, and on its recovery begin to bargain with it for its liberty. Its blood, to be of any service, must be voluntarily given, so the hunters demand so many cupsful as the price of its release. After a good deal of palavering this is settled; the animal then himself opens a vein, measures out the quantity agreed on and is released, again to fall a victim to similar temptation.” The assumption that the baboon can, if it will, hold converse with mankind is noteworthy as common to most countries whence the monkey tribes take their origin.

A very singular coincidence between two legends relating to fabulous fish is to be found in the following. A recent visitor to Nanking thus describes the basin which formerly decorated the top of the celebrated porcelain pagoda: “We happened to discover among the ruins an immense cast iron basin, 39 feet in circumference, which is connected popularly with the above account of the thunder spirit. This basin was placed with its mouth upwards on the summit of the pagoda, and hence would constantly be full of rain water. A bird perched upon the edge of the basin one day dropped a fish into the water, which grew and grew till it became a strange monster, exercising such an evil influence over the neighbourhood that the God of thunder was at length compelled to attack it, and in doing so struck the tower and partially destroyed it. It was finally destroyed by the rebels in 1856.” Now if we turn to Henderson’s Folk-lore of the Northern Counties, p. 248, we find the following story of the “Heir of Lambton.” Fishing one day in the river Wear he felt something tugging at his line and thought he had secured a fine fish. But to his horror he found that he had only caught a worm of unsightly appearance which he hastily tore from his hook and flung into a well close by. “A stranger of venerable appearance passing by asked him what sport he had met with. To which he replied, ‘Why truly I think I have caught the devil himself. Look in and judge.’ The stranger looked, and remarked that he thought it boded no good.… Meantime the worm remained in the well till it outgrew so confined a hiding place. It then emerged and betook itself by day to the river, and by night to a neighbouring hill round whose base it would twine itself; while it continued to grow so fast that it soon could encircle the hill three times. The monster now became the terror of the whole country side, &c.” The feat of arms by which this “Lambton Worm” was finally killed has been before alluded to. But the coincidence between the Chinese and English legend, in other respects, seemed worth additional notice.

Some of my readers may perchance be interested to learn that the original home of the mermaid (Ch. sea-woman 海女 hai nü) is almost within sight of the room in which these notes are being written. The only specimen of a veritable mermaid I ever saw was Barnum’s celebrated purchase from Japan, which, so far as could be judged, consisted of a monkey’s body most artistically joined to a fish’s tail. But the author of a work entitled Yueh chung chieh wên, or “Jottings on the South of China,” compiled in 1801, narrates how a man of the district of Sin-an (locally Sin-on) captured a mermaid on the shore of Ta-yü-shan or Namtao Island. “Her features and limbs were in all respects human, except that her body was covered with fine hair of many beautiful colours. The fisherman took home his prize and married her, though she was unable to talk and could only smile. She however learned to wear clothes like ordinary mortals. “When the fisherman died the sea-maiden was sent back to the spot where she was first found, and she disappeared beneath the waves.” The narrator quaintly adds, “This testifies that a man-fish does no injury to human beings,” and he moreover informs us that these creatures are frequently to be found near Yü-shan and the Ladrone Island—so that any adventurous Hongkong canoeist may still have a chance of making a novel acquaintance. Another case recorded by the same writer speaks of a mermaid of more conventional form than the lady already noticed. “The Cabinet Councillor Cha Tao being despatched on a mission to Corea, and lying at anchor in his ship at a bay upon the coast, saw a woman stretched upon the beach, with her face upwards, her hair short and streaming loose, and with webbed feet and hands. He recognised this being as a mermaid (or man fish) and gave orders that she should be carried to the sea. This being done, the creature clasped her hands with an expression of loving gratitude and sank beneath the waters.”

The Straits of Hainan are regarded by the Chinese as the chief habitat of monstrous fishes of strange shape, ruled over by the God of the waters, a sort of Chinese Neptune. And it is quite possible that the opening of the principal port of the island to foreign trade may (on the ground that nearly all such legends have a faint substratum of truth) reveal to the eyes of the naturalist new and undreamt-of inhabitants of the deep. It is but a few years since the ridicule excited by M. Victor Hugo’s “devil fish” has given way to a sober recognition of the fact that the octopus of real life is a monster but little differing from the fanciful sketch given of his congener. And he would now-a-days be rash who ventured to assert that the Chinese have less ground for asserting the existence of very real monsters to our eyes than is possessed by the hardy fishermen of the coasts of Northern Europe.