Chinese Fairy Tales
SKY O’DAWN
ONCE upon a time there was a man who took a child to
a woman in a certain village, and told her to take care of him. Then he
disappeared. And because the dawn was just breaking in the sky when the
woman took the child into her home, she called him Sky O’Dawn. When the
child was three years old, he would often look up to the heavens and
talk with the stars. One day he ran away and many months passed before
he came home again. The woman gave him a whipping. But he ran away
again, and did not return for a year. His foster-mother was frightened,
and asked: “Where have you been all year long?” The boy answered: “I
only made a quick trip to the Purple Sea. There the water stained my
clothes red. So I went to the spring at which the sun turns in, and
washed them. I went away in the morning and I came back at noon. Why do
you speak about my having been gone a year?”
Then the woman asked: “And where did you pass on your way?”
The
boy answered: “When I had washed my clothes, I rested for a while in
the City of the Dead and fell asleep. And the King-Father of the East
gave me red chestnuts and rosy dawn-juice to eat, and my hunger was
stilled. Then I went to the dark skies and drank the yellow dew, and my
thirst was quenched. And I met a black tiger and wanted to ride home on
his back. But I whipped him too hard, and he bit me in the leg. And so
I came back to tell you about it.”
Once more the boy ran away
from home, thousands [91] of miles, until he came to the swamp where
dwelt the Primal Mist. There he met an old man with yellow eyebrows and
asked him how old he might be. The old man said: “I have given up the
habit of eating, and live on air. The pupils of my eyes have gradually
acquired a green glow, which enables me to see all hidden things.
Whenever a thousand years have passed I turn around my bones and wash
the marrow. And every two thousand years I scrape my skin to get rid of
the hair. I have already washed my bones thrice and scraped my skin
five times.”
Afterward Sky O’Dawn served the Emperor Wu of the
Han dynasty. The Emperor, who was fond of the magic arts, was much
attached to him. One day he said to him: “I wish that the empress might
not grow old. Can you prevent it?”
Sky O’Dawn answered: “I know of only one means to keep from growing old.”
The
Emperor asked what herbs one had to eat. Sky O’Dawn replied: “In the
North-East grow the mushrooms of life. There is a three-legged crow in
the sun who always wants to get down and eat them. But the Sun-God
holds his eyes shut and does not let him get away. If human beings eat
them they become immortal, when animals eat them they grow stupefied.”
“And how do you know this?” asked the Emperor.
“When
I was a boy I once fell into a deep well, from which I could not get
out for many decades. And down there was an immortal who led me to this
herb. But one has to pass through a red river whose water is so light
that not even a feather can swim on it. Everything that touches its
surface sinks to the depths. But the man pulled off one of his shoes
and gave it to me. And I crossed the water on the shoe, picked the herb
and ate it. Those who dwell in that place weave mats [92] of pearls and
precious stones. They led me to a spot before which hung a curtain of
delicate, colored skin. And they gave me a pillow carved of black jade,
on which were graven sun and moon, clouds and thunder. They covered me
with a dainty coverlet spun of the hair of a hundred gnats. A cover of
that kind is very cool and refreshing in summer. I felt of it with my
hands, and it seemed to be formed of water; but when I looked at it
more closely, it was pure light.”
Once the Emperor called
together all his magicians in order to talk with them about the fields
of the blessed spirits. Sky O’Dawn was there, too, and said: “Once I
was wandering about the North Pole and I came to the Fire-Mirror
Mountain. There neither sun nor moon shines. But there is a dragon who
holds a fiery mirror in his jaws in order to light up the darkness. On
the mountain is a park, and in the park is a lake. By the lake grows
the glimmer-stalk grass, which shines like a lamp of gold. If you pluck
it and use it for a candle, you can see all things visible, and the
shapes of the spirits as well. It even illuminates the interior of a
human being.”
Once Sky O’Dawn went to the East, into the country
of the fortunate clouds. And he brought back with him from that land a
steed of the gods, nine feet high. The Emperor asked him how he had
come to find it.
So he told him: “The Queen-Mother of the West
had him harnessed to her wagon when she went to visit the King-Father
of the East. The steed was staked out in the field of the mushrooms of
life. But he trampled down several hundred of them. This made the
King-Father angry, and he drove the steed away to the heavenly river.
There I found him and rode him home. I rode three times around the sun,
because I had fallen asleep on the steed’s back. And then, [93] before
I knew it, I was here. This steed can catch up with the sun’s shadow.
When I found him he was quite thin and as sad as an aged donkey. So I
mowed the grass of the country of the fortunate clouds, which grows
once every two-thousand years on the Mountain of the Nine Springs and
fed it to the horse; and that made him lively again.”
The
Emperor asked what sort of a place the country of the fortunate clouds
might be. Sky O’Dawn answered: “There is a great swamp there. The
people prophesy fortune and misfortune by the air and the clouds. If
good fortune is to befall a house, clouds of five colors form in the
rooms, which alight on the grass and trees and turn into a colored dew.
This dew tastes as sweet as cider.”
The Emperor asked whether he
could obtain any of this dew. Sky O’Dawn replied: “My steed could take
me to the place where it falls four times in the course of a single
day!”
And sure enough he came back by evening, and brought along
dew of every color in a crystal flask. The Emperor drank it and his
hair grew black again. He gave it to his highest officials to drink,
and the old grew young again and the sick became well.
Once,
when a comet appeared in the heavens, Sky O’Dawn gave the Emperor the
astrologer’s wand. The Emperor pointed it at the comet and the comet
was quenched.
Sky O’Dawn was an excellent whistler. And whenever
he whistled in full tones, long drawn out, the motes in the sunbeams
danced to his music.
Once he said to a friend: “There is not a soul on earth who knows who I am with the exception of the astrologer!”
When Sky O’Dawn had died, the Emperor called [94] the astrologer to him and asked: “Did you know Sky O’Dawn?”
He replied: “No!”
The Emperor said: “What do you know?”
The astrologer answered: “I know how to gaze on the stars.”
“Are all the stars in their places?” asked the Emperor.
“Yes, but for eighteen years I have not seen the Star of the Great Year. Now it is visible once more.”
Then
the Emperor looked up towards the skies and sighed: “For eighteen years
Sky O’Dawn kept me company, and I did not know that he was the Star of
the Great Year!”
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