Chinese Fairy Tales
THE ANCIENT MAN
ONCE upon a time there was a man named Huang An.
He must have been well over eighty and yet he looked like a youth. He
lived on cinnabar and wore no clothing. Even in winter he went about
without garments. He sat on a tortoise three feet long. Once he was
asked: “About how old might this tortoise be?” He answered: “When Fu Hi
first invented fish-nets and eel-pots he caught this tortoise and gave
it to me. And since then I have worn its shield quite flat sitting on
it. The creature dreads the radiance of the sun and moon, so it only
sticks its head out of its shell once in two thousand years. Since I
have had the beast, it has already stuck its head out five times.” With
these words he took his tortoise on his back and went off. And the
legend arose that this man was ten thousand years old.
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