Chinese Æsop:

Chau Kwang-yin --The Founder of the Sung Dynasty The Birth of the Founder of the Sung Dynasty The historian tells us that the birth of the founder of the Sung dynasty was marked by very unusual natural phenomena. Immediately after he was born the sky was filled with reddish clouds that overhung the house where the child was, and for three days the dwelling was pervaded by a most fragrant odour. People at the time remarked to each other that all this portended a great future for the boy, and his mother believed that he would one day occupy a distinguished position amongst his fellow-men. Willing to Die For Their Emperor In the year of A. D. 954, the founder of "After Chou" dynasty, Kwo-wei, died and and was succeeded by his son. No sooner had the news gone abroad that Kwo-wei was dead than Liu-tsung, the Prince of the Northern Han, moved forward his own army of thirty thousand men, and a considerable force of Khitans as allies with him, and began the siege of the im...

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...

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....

One day when Chang Tâo-ling, the Heavenly Teacher was engaged in experimenting with the ‘Dragon-tiger elixir’, Lao Tzŭ appeared to him and conferred him the mystic treatise Tâo Tê Ching. Then he took up his abode in the deep mountains, where he devoted himself wholly to the study of this book and meditation, he persevered in the study of alchemy, and in cultivating the virtues of purity, declining all offers to enter the service of the State. By following the instructions in which he was successful in his search for the elixir of life. After going through a thousand days of discipline, and receiving instruction from a goddess, who taught him to walk about among the stars, he proceeded to fight with the king of the demons, to divide mountains and seas, and to command the wind and thunder. All the demons fled before him. Chang Tâo-ling had at least two selves, one of which used to disport itself in a boat on a small lake in front of his house. The other self would receive his visitor...

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...

On the right and left sides of the entrance hall of Buddhist temples, two on each side, are the gigantic figures of the four great Diamond Kings of Heaven. They are four brothers named respectively Mo-li Ch’ing (Pure), Mo-li Hung (Vast), Mo-li Hai (Sea), and Mo-li Shou (Age). Mo-li Ch’ing, the eldest, is twenty-four feet in height, with a beard the hairs of which are like copper wire. He carries a magnificent jade ring and a spear, and always fights on foot. He has also a magic sword, ‘Blue Cloud,’ on the blade of which are engraved the four characters: Earth, Water, Fire, Wind. When brandished, it causes a black wind, which produces tens of thousands of spears, which pierce the bodies of men and turn them to dust. The wind is followed by a fire, which fills the air with tens of thousands of golden fiery serpents. A thick smoke also rises out of the ground, which blinds and burns men, none being able to escape. Mo-li Hung carries in his hand an umbrella, called the Umbrella of Chao...

Prince Tan of the State of Yen, for some cause or other had been living in Ts'in as a hostage. There he had been treated most cruelly by King Chung, so that when he returned to his home his heart was burning with a desire to revenge his wrongs. He was determined that Chung should die, for nothing short of his death would satisfy him. In order to accomplish his purpose he consulted with a man named King-k'o as to the means by which it could be carried out. The latter volunteered to do the bloody deed, but the question was, How was he to penetrate through the guards that surrounded the king, so that he could get near his person ? At that time there was living in Yen a traitorous general Fan-yu Chi from Ts'in, for whose head Chung had offered a thousand pieces of gold and high official employment. King-k'o proposed that this man should be executed, and that he should take his head to Chung and seize the opportunity of murdering him. The prince, who by this time had bec...