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 Classics of Mountains and Seas says, there is a god on the mountain of Celestial Mountain,  whose form resembles a yellow sack with a red aura like cinnabar. He has six legs and four wings and exists in a state of confusion with no face or eyes. He knows how to sing and dance for he is, in fact, Di-Jiang. This God Di-Jiang was actually the Cosmogonic Chaos, or Hundun. The Book  Master Zhuang says, the Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shû, the Ruler of the Northern Ocean was Hû, and the Ruler of the Centre was Chaos. Chaos looked like a red, faceless bird with four wings and six legs, and was born without the seven bodily openings of other humans. Shû and Hû were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, who treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said, `Men all have seven orifices for the purpose of seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing, while this (poor) Ruler alone has not one. Let us try and make them for him.' Accord...

In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, an old legend relates that in the earliest times there grew on Mount Tu Shuo, in the Eastern Sea, a peach-tree of fabulous size whose branches covered an area of three thousand square li. On the top of the tree, there was a Golden Rooster, who crows to herald the break of the day. The lowest arched branches, which inclined toward the north-east and the point of them touches the ground, formed the Door of the Devils, through which millions of them passed in and out. Two spirits, named Shên Tu and Yü Lü, had been instructed to guard this passage. Shên Tu on the left, holding a Peach Wood Word; and Yü  Lü on the right, holding a rope. Every night millions of Devils passed through this door to the human world, and before the Golden Rooster crows they had to come back to their Ghost Town. Those Devils who had done wrong to mankind were immediately bound by Shên Tu and Yü Lü and given over to be devoured by tigers. So devils and ghosts were dread o...

The ancient Mountain and Sea Classic recorded a Perforated Chest Kingdom. It says that a far away land in the south beyongd sea, a kingdom called Perforated Chest Kindom. The people have holes in their chests, which render the use of the sedan chair unnecessary; the wealthier of them being transported from place to place by means of a bamboo passed through the said hole. The Encyclopedia Bo Wu Zhi presents the origin of this kingdom. The Perforated Chest tribe is the descendant of two ministers of Fang Feng. Yu the Great summoned all the gods to the great assembly on Mount Mao in Kuai-ji, one of them, the chieftain of Fang feng tribe hesitated and came too late. Yu the Great had him executed. Later, when Yu traveled in a dragon carriage, and passed by Fang-feng’s territory. Two Fang-feng’s ministers wanted to revenge for their lord, so they shoot Yu with an arrow. Then the storm blew up and the dragons rose up and left. The two officers, terrified, stabbed themselves with dagg...