Chinese Æsop:

KUAN Tl, the God of War, was really called Kuan Yü. When the rebellion of the Yellow Turbans swept through the empire he concluded an alliance of friendship with two other men whom he encountered on the road and who, like himself, were fired by patriotism. One of them was the later emperor Liu Bei, the other was called Chang Fei. The three met in a peach orchard and pledged themselves to be brothers to each other even though they came from different families. They slaughtered a white horse and swore loyalty unto death. Kuan Yü was honest, loyal, just and courageous beyond all measure. He was fond of reading Confucius's book On the Rise and Fall of Empires (Ch’un Ch’iu). He helped his friend Liu Bei to suppress the Yellow Turbans and conquer the Four-River Land. The horse he rode was called Red Hare and could cover a thousand miles a day. He had a crescent-shaped knife Which was called the Green Dragon. His eyebrows were beautiful like those of silken butterflies and his eyes were...

Once there were two brothers who shared the same house. The tall one always listened to his wife and this led to a quarrel with his brother. Summer had come and it was time to sow the tall millet. But the short one had no grain and he therefore asked the tall one if he would lend him some. The tall one commanded his wife to do so. But the wife took the grain, put it in a large pot and boiled it. Then she gave it to the short one. The short one unknowingly went out and sowed the grain on his field. But as the grain had been boiled no shoots sprouted forth. Only one single seed had escaped being cooked entirely; and so a single shoot sprouted up. The short one was hard-working and conscientious by nature and he therefore watered and hoed the shoot all day long. And so it grew up into a mighty tree and it bore a spike as large as a canopy, shading half an acre of land. In autumn it ripened. Then the short one took an axe and chopped down the spike. But no sooner had the spike dropped to t...

One day in the early dawn, a distinguished mandarin was leaving the temple of the City God. It was his duty to visit this temple on the first and fifteenth of the moon, whilst the city was still asleep, to offer incense and adoration to the stern-looking figure enshrined within. This mandarin was Shih-Kung. As Shih-Kung was being carried along in his sedan chair, with his numerous retinue following closely behind him, he happened to notice a young woman walking in the road in front of him, and began to wonder what it was that had brought her out at such an unusually early hour. She was dressed in the very deepest mourning, and so after a little more thought he concluded that she was a widow who was on her way to the grave of her late husband to make the usual offerings to his spirit. All at once a sudden, furious whirlwind screamed about the woman and seemed determined to spend its force upon her; but beyond her nothing was touched by it. Not a leaf on the trees near by was moved, an...

The Sun King The worship of the sun was part of the State religion, and the officials make their offerings to the sun-tablet. The moon also is worshipped. At the harvest moon, the full moon of the eighth month, the Chinese bow before the heavenly luminary, and each family burns incense as an offering. Thus “100,000 classes all receive the blessings of the icy-wheel in the Milky Way along the heavenly street, a mirror always bright.” In Chinese illustrations we see the moon-palace of Ch’ang O, who stole the pill of immortality and flew to the moon, the fragrant tree which one of the genii tried to cut down, and a hare pestling medicine in a mortar. This refers to the following legend. The sun and the moon are both included by the Chinese among the stars, the spirit of the former being called ‘the Sun-king,’ that of the latter ‘the Moon-queen,’ or ‘Ch’ang O of the Lunar Palace.’ Shên I lived in the reign of Yellow Emperor, who appointed him Director of Construction and Furnishing....

This story is about how the Spirit of a drowned person was promoted to the God of the City. 水鬼升城隍的故事 One evening in the distant past a fisherman anchored his boat near the bank of a stream which flowed close by a great city, whose walls could be seen rising grey and rugged in the near distance. The sound of life fell upon his ear and kept him from feeling lonely. Coolies, with bamboo carrying-poles on their shoulders, tired out with the heavy work of the day, hurried by afraid lest the darkness should overtake them before they reached their homes. The bearers of sedan-chairs, which they had carried for many a weary mile, strode by with quickened step and with an imperious shout at the foot passengers to get out of their way and not block up the narrow road by which they would gain the city walls before the great gates were closed for the night. By the time that the afterglow had died out of the sky and the distant hills were blotted out of the horizon, the fisherman had finished...

There is a certain Prefectural city in the south of China, outside one of its four gates, on one side of a road road was a magnificent series of memorial arches built in close succession to each other for a considerable distance. They were composed of granite slabs, some very plain in their design, whilst others were highly artistic. Every one of these arches had been erected to commemorate some person who had already passed away, but whose virtues in life had been so conspicuous that the community had determined that they should not be forgotten, but that a record of them should be handed down to posterity, not only to keep their memory fragrant, but also to provide beautiful examples for succeeding generations. Amongst the virtues recorded on these granite slabs, the most common was that of filial piety. But of all the numerous arches spanning the road there was one which attracted more attention than any other in the long line. This was not because the virtues of the person, in...

KWANG-JUI (唐僧的父亲陈光蕊) AND THE GOD OF THE RIVER When we first meet with Kwang-Jui, he is living with his widowed mother in a retired part of the country. His father had been dead for some time, and Kwang-Jui was now the only one upon whom the fortunes of the home could be built. He was a very studious lad, and was possessed of remarkable abilities, the result being that he successfully passed the various Imperial Examinations, even the final one in the capital, where the Sovereign himself presided as examiner. After this last examination, as the men were waiting outside the Hall for the names of those who had satisfied the Emperor to be read out a considerable crowd had collected. Most of these people had come from mere curiosity to see the Imperial Edict, and to discover who the scholar was that stood first on the list. The excitement was intense, and speculation ran rife as to which of the candidates, who had come from almost every province in the Empire, was going to obtain the p...