Chinese Æsop:

At the foot of Bell Mountain  is a god with a human face and a snake’s body that is red. His eye is vertical. When he closes his eye, it becomes night, and when he opens it to gaze, it becomes day. He neither eats nor sleeps, but he can summon the wind and rain. His exhaling causes winter, his inhaling causes summer, and his breathing causes the wind. He illuminates the ninefold darkness. This is Torch-Dragon (烛龙).

Xingtian and the Yellow emperor struggled against each other for ultimate power. The giant Xingtian was a follower of the Emperor Yan. After the victory of the Yellow Emperor over Emperor Yan at the Battle of Banquan, Xingtian followed his master to exile in the south. After the Yellow Emperor defeated and executed Chi You, Xingtian went forth with an axe and shield against the Yellow Emperor. He forced his way to the southern Gate of the Celestial Court and issued a challenge to the Yellow Emperor for a duel. The Yellow Emperor came forth and the two engaged in a ferocious combat, sword against axe, all the way down to earth to Eternally Auspicious Mountain (the mountain of ChangYang). In a final blow, the Yellow Emperor distracted his opponent with a trick and lunged ... and in a flash decapitated Xingtian, whose head rolled all the way to the foot of the mountain and created a thunderous roar. Instead of dying, Xingtian was able to continue moving and began groping a...

Thoroughly-Odd (穷奇) is a wayward offspring of the thearch Lesser-Brilliance (少昊). He resembles a tiger with wings. His hair is like the spines of hedgehogs, makes a sound like an angry dog. Thoroughly-Odd was a maneater, and devours people head first, and those he devours wear their hair long. He understands human language, and when he hears men quarreling, he immediately devours the one who is right. When he hears of someone who is loyal and trustworthy, he immediately eats their nose; if he hears someone who is rebellious and evil, he immediately kills an animal and presents it to him. He is called Thoroughly-Odd and devours all other kinds of birds and beasts. The descendants of Thoroughly-Odd were banished to the periphery and charged with controlling the Chimei-Hobgoblins (魑魅).

Goumang (勾芒) in the east has a bird’s body and a human face. He rides on two dragons. Guo P'u (郭璞) noted that he has a square head, and wears white. He was one of the messengers of the Supreme God Di bestowing punishments or rewards. The following anecdote recorded in the book Mo Tzu (墨子): Once, Duke Mu of Qin was carrying out a sacrifice in his ancestral temple at dawn when a god entered the gate and stood to the left. He had a bird’s body, wore white silk with trimmings, and had a dignified, squareshaped face. When Duke Mu saw him, he was fearful and tried to flee. The god said, “Have no fear! The Supreme God Di is pleased with your luminous virtue and has sent me to bestow upon you nineteen more years of life that you may bring prosperity to your state and family, that your descendants may multiply, and that you may maintain the state of Qin.” Duke Mu bowed twice to the ground in submission and said, “May I dare to ask your name, Divine One?” “I am Goumang,” he replied.

In the Great Wilds is a mountain called The Capital City That Supports Heaven. There is a person named Kuafu the Boaster. He holds two yellow snakes in his hands with two yellow snakes through his ears. Lord Earth begat Trust (Xin) and Trust begat Kuafu. Kuafu overestimated his power and wanted to chase the sun’s shadow and catch it in Ape Valley where the sun sets. He became very thirsty, and went to drink in the Yellow River and Wei River, but the water was not enough so he wanted to go to the Grand Lake, but fainted of thirsty on the road before reaching it. At the time, Winged-Dragon had already killed Chiyou and then killed Kuafu. Kuafu threw down his staff, which became transformed into the Deng Forest.

Wang Meng was an high official of King Taimou of the Shang dynasty, who was dispatched in the twenty-sixth year of his reign to greet the Western Rong tribe when they came to pay a visit of submission. The King also gave Wang Meng a secret mission to search for medicinal herbs which could add one thousand years to one’s life if eaten. After Wang Meng completed his friendly mission to the Western Rong tribe, he followed the Queen Mother of the West to the Land of Man, where he ran out of food and could go no farther. But Wang survived by eating the fruit of trees and wearing clothes of bark. Though he never married, he gave birth to two sons who sprang forth from his body, whereupon he died. These were the ancestors of the inhabitants of the Land of Men, who wear proper robes and caps and carry swords just like their father did. The Land of Men lies twenty-thousand li beyond the western frontier marked by the Jade Gate.

The Land of the Single-Arm People lies north of the Land of the One-Arm People. These people have one arm and three eyes and both male and female genitals. They ride on patterned horses. the horses which was called Lucky. Lucky Horse was striped with a white body, red hair, and eyes like gold, it may add one thousand years to one’s life if eaten. The Single-Arm People are adept at creating mechanical things, which they use in hunting. They can manufacture flying carriages which travel far on the wind. During the time of King Tang of the Shang, a western wind came and blew them in their carriages to Yu Province. King Tang destroyed their carriages so that the common people would not see them. Ten years later, an eastern wind started to blow. The Single-Arm People rebuilt their carriages and were sent home in them, for their land lay forty thousand li beyond the Jade Gate.

The Xia Sovereign Qi was the son of Yu the Great, his mother was a girl of Muddy Mountain who later metamorphosed into a stone out of fright when Yu transformed himself into a bear, Yu demanded his son, and Qi was born from the stone’s north side when it opened up. Yu name him Qi, means “to open up.” Qi was the second sovereign of the Xia dynasty, he stole the music from heaven and brought the divine music and dance to humankind. According the Guildways to the Mountain and Seas: the Xia Sovereign Qi danced “The Nine Dai Dances” on the Plain of the Grand Music. He rode on two dragons, and the clouds formed a canopy for him three layers high. In his left hand he held a feathered pennant, in his right, a jade ring, and he wore a jade semicircle from his belt. The utilitarian philosopher Mo Di said, Qi was a decadent ruler who indulged himself in entertainment and lost heaven’s favor. In the “Questions of Heaven” in the Songs of Chu, the poet Qu Yuan wrote: Qi supplanted his father’s c...