Tales of a Chinese Grandmother

by Frances Carpenter

  "Fox fairies!" Ah Shung and Yu Lang breathed the words with hushed voices. They had heard of fox fairies ever since they were as small as their baby cousin, Lung-Er. They knew that the foxes were the cleverest of all the animals and that they could change themselves into men and women whenever they liked. They knew, too, that fox fairies brought good luck if they were pleased and bad luck if they were angry. There was a tiny temple to the foxes out in their own Garden of Sweet Smells. When good luck did not come, Grandmother Ling often lit sticks of sweet-smelling incense or put small bowls of food in the fox fairies' shrine.

  "Did you ever meet a fox fairy, Lao Lao?" Ah Shung asked his grandmother.

  "Ai, Bear Boy, I cannot say," the old woman replied. "Who can tell fox fairies from everyday folk? There may be fox fairies inside our own walls at this very hour. That new maid in your uncle's court and the old beggar who is even now eating his rice just inside our red gate may be foxes who have taken the shapes of a young girl and an old man. We could not tell the difference any easier than Yang Le."

  "Who was Yang Le, Grandmother?" Ah Shung asked. And Yu Lang hurried back to settle herself, cross-legged, on the brick bed again to listen to the story which she was sure was about to begin.

  "Yang Le, Little Curious, was the son of a general, so the tale says," Grandmother Ling began, smiling at the two eager children on the brick bed. "When he was about eighteen years of age his parents both died, and he went to live in the courts of his father's cousin, whose name was Wen Sing.

  "Now Wen Sing had a daughter, Mai Mai, who was as fair as the plum blossom for which she was named. She was a good girl. She had been brought up with care and she had been taught all the rules for maidenly behavior. An aunt who was her governess watched over her by day and slept beside her by night. Mai Mai never set foot outside the inner courts except to walk in the garden with her aunts or her girl cousins.

  "So Yang Le only saw his pretty cousin, Mai Mai, on family feast days or when he came upon her in the garden in the midst of a group of women and girls. But at their very first meeting he looked upon her with delight. She was so beautiful, he thought, that the flowers in the garden must hang their heads in shame when she passed. He thought she looked at him as though she, in her turn, found him pleasing, and he longed for a chance to speak to her alone.

  "But that, of course, was not possible, and so he contented himself with sitting in his lonely room and writing poems about her. He wrote about her smooth brow as white as the rice flour, about her eyebrows as fine as a butterfly's feelers, and about her red lips which were like a pair of ripe cherries. So many verses he wrote that it would take us two days to read them.

  "One hot night in summer, when all the Wen family had gone to their beds, Yang Le could not sleep. 'I'll just go into the garden for a breath of fresh air,' he thought to himself. As he walked along the paths in the moonlight he saw a graceful figure coming toward him. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw that it had the face of the lovely Mai Mai.

  "'Of course I should not have left my room without telling my aunt,' she said to him shyly. 'But the night is so hot, and I thought there would be a breeze in the garden.' Yang Le and Mai Mai talked for a long time under the trees, and the young man discovered that his pretty cousin loved him quite as much as he cared for her.

  "'But my father will never consent to our marriage,' the maiden told Yang Le sadly. 'He has already promised me to the son of a neighbor.'

  "But, in spite of that, Yang Le came secretly each night to the garden, and each night the maiden met him under the trees. None knew of their meeting until the old watchman heard their voices one night. He peeped through the gate into the garden where he saw the two lovers, and he went straight away to tell his master, Wen Sing.

  "'How is this?' Wen Sing cried angrily to the aunt who took care of his daughter. 'You are indeed a fine governess. Do you not know that if you leave the cage open the bird will fly out the door?'

  "'But, Honorable Brother, it could not have been your daughter who was with Yang Le in the garden. Every night she has slept on the inner side of the bed. Again and again I have wakened and looked to see that she was safely sleeping beside me. '

  "When they questioned Mai Mai, she would not speak. She only hung her head. Indeed, she did love Yang Le and she would say nothing that might cause him to be beaten. Wen Sing shook his head. He could not understand it at all. 'However it may be, we must send Yang Le away, ' he declared to his wife. So he gave the lad money, and he put him outside the gate.

  "For many days Yang Le wandered, seeking a shelter. At last he came to an old tower with seven small curving roofs, rising one over the other. It was a pagoda, just like the one that stands on the hill outside our city. No one was living in it, and so the young man decided to make it his home.

  "One day a fine sedan chair stopped before the pagoda door. To Yang Le's surprise when its curtain was raised, out stepped the lovely Mai Mai, clad in a red bridal gown. The porters had unpacked all her rich belongings before the young man could recover from his surprise.

  "'I have been brought here by my uncle, Chu, who is the general of this region, ' Mai Mai explained to Yang Le. 'My father has consented that I should become your wife. We shall be happy together. '

  "Now Yang Le was troubled by such a strange happening. But he knew that her uncle, Chu, was indeed commanding the region, and he rejoiced in his good fortune. He decided that he would go and thank General Chu for his kindness in escorting his bride from her home.

  "'But I did not bring my niece with me!' General Chu cried. 'She is still with her parents. If she had come here, I am sure my brother would have told me.' He went with Yang Le to the pagoda to see the bride for himself, and he was struck dumb with astonishment when he saw that she was indeed the lovely Mai Mai.

  "Not long thereafter, General Chu returned to the city where the Wen family lived. He made haste to seek his brother, Wen Sing, and to tell him that he had seen his daughter, Mai Mai, in Yang Le's pagoda.

  "'That could not be,' Wen Sing declared. 'My daughter has not set foot outside our gate. What can this mean?' In dismay he called for his wife and the aunt who watched over Mai Mai, and he told them the news.

  "'It is clear,' said the mother, 'this other Mai Mai is a fox fairy who takes the form of our daughter. Ai-yah, she will make everyone believe that our girl gads about in this scandalous fashion. There is but one thing to do. Call back Yang Le. Let him marry our daughter!'

  "Wen Sing and his brother agreed that this was the only way to undo the damage. So Yang Le was sent for, and soon he arrived with his bride. When they entered the family hall the young man's eyes almost fell out of his head, for there, standing beside a table, he saw another Mai Mai. The two maidens were as like as two grains of rice. There was not a hair's difference between them. Even Wen Sing and his wife could not tell which was their daughter.

  "'It is that one who is the daughter of the Wen family,' said the maiden who had entered the hall by the side of Yang Le. 'She is your bride. I am a fox fairy. Many years ago General Yang Han—your grandfather, young man—was out hunting deer on a mountainside near my cave. I was struck by an arrow shot from his bow, and his porters seized me. But the good general, your grandfather, dressed my bleeding wound, and he set me free. I have never forgotten, and now through you, Yang Le, I have paid my debt to him.

  "'I heard that you loved this maiden,' the fox fairy continued as the Wen family stood speechless, 'and I knew you would not be permitted to wed her, even though the old man who lives in the moon long ago joined your ankle to hers with the red cord of marriage. So I took a hand in the matter. I have already reached an age of more than one thousand years and so I can take the shape of a maiden whenever it pleases me. It was I who met you in the garden and who there spoke for Mai Mai. It was I who came in the sedan chair to your pagoda. My plan has succeeded. You are to marry Mai Mai. My work is now done. I shall not see you again.'

  "With these words the false Mai Mai d
isappeared. In her place there was only a little red fox who turned a quick somersault. Sparks rose as its tail struck the stone floor, and it flew out of the room through a crack in the wall.

  "And that very day," Grandmother Ling ended her story, "the Wen family gathered in the Hall of the Ancestors to see Yang Le and Mai Mai eat their wedding rice and drink their wedding wine in proper fashion."

  XII

  LADY WITH THE HORSE'S HEAD

  O HONORABLE LADY with the Horse's Head, give leaves to our mulberry trees and health to our silkworms!"

  Grandmother Ling spoke these words in a sing-song voice while she swayed back and forth on her knees. In front of her, on the center of a shining black table, was a carved wooden statue of a young woman with a horse's skin thrown over her head and her shoulders. And in a bronze urn before the little statue there burned several sticks of incense that perfumed the air with sweet smoke.

  It was spring. The green dragon had awakened from his long winter sleep under the waters and had flown up into the blue sky. The paving stones in the courtyards were marked off from each other by thin lines of green grass. There were spring blossoms in the Garden of Sweet Smells, and birds sang in the branches of the green-tipped willow trees. It was the Third Day of the Third Moon in the Chinese calendar, which falls in the month of April of western lands. This day was the time for worshipping the Silkworm Maiden, and it was before her statue that the Old Old One was saying her little prayer.

  Out in the country, beyond the city walls, there were many fields belonging to the Ling family. And on these, among the other crops, grew mulberry trees with whose leaves the Lings fed the tiny gray worms which spun silk for them each year.

  "The Daughter of Heaven, our Dragon Empress in Peking, kneels to the Silkworm Maiden and says prayers for the silkworms all over the Empire. So also should we, if we want our leaves to be tender and our worms to spin fine silk," Grandmother Ling explained to Yu Lang and Ah Shung when she rose from her knees and walked out into the spring sunshine.

  The air was so soft and warm that the old woman sat down for a few moments on a sunny stone bench beside the door of the family hall. The boy and the girl sat down beside her and began to ask her questions about the silkworms. Would there be as many silkworms hatched inside their red gate as there were last year? Would the women servants keep the eggs warm inside their wadded gowns as at the last hatching season? Which house would be the warmest for the wicker trays covered with tender mulberry leaves upon which the wee baby worms would be put to feed?

  Ah Shung and Yu Lang were always interested in the silkworms. They grew so fast, and they changed so quickly from tiny threadlike black creatures to fat gray worms several inches in length. The children liked to hear the worms crunch away at the mulberry leaves. But best of all they liked to see them throw the fine silvery thread out of their mouths and wind it about their own bodies, making little round balls of silk. Their grandmother had told Ah Shung and Yu Lang how the men to whom she sold the silk balls baked them and boiled them and unwound their fine strands.

  "Why does the Silkworm Maiden have a horse's skin over her shoulders, Lao Lao?" Yu Lang asked as she sat on the stone bench swinging her little bound feet back and forth, back and forth.

  "There's a story about that, Little Precious," said old Grandmother Ling. "In ancient times there lived a young princess whom we now call Tsan Nu, or the Lady of the Silkworms. As all good children should, she loved her father and mother above all else in the world. One day, when she was about fifteen years old, a band of wicked men rode into the palace gate and carried the Emperor away. Poor Tsan Nu was sad at the thought of her father in the hands of the robbers. She would not eat. She would not sleep. She spent most of her time out in the stable with her father's favorite horse because it, too, was waiting for the Emperor to return.

  "The Empress grew alarmed at her daughter's condition. She feared that, unless her father returned, the princess would die. So she let it be known that she would make the Princess Tsan Nu the bride of anyone who should bring back the Emperor safe and sound.

  "All the young men in the Empire, rich ones and poor ones, set forth to seek for the lost Emperor in the hope that they might win the Princess Tsan Nu. But ai, my children, each one returned with downcast head and shamed face. No one could find him. A whole year went by. Tsan Nu's father was still missing.

  "Then one day, when the princess went to the stable to visit her father's favorite horse, she stroked the animal's neck and said, 'You share my sadness, I know. You who have carried my dear father on your back, can you not tell me where he is now? My mother has offered to give me as wife to the one who shall bring my father back safe and sound. But no one can find him, oo-yoo, oo-yoo.' And the poor little princess burst into tears.

  "Suddenly to her surprise the horse gave a mighty tug at the strap that fastened him in his stall. He burst it in two. Before the men servants could catch him he galloped away out of the stable and out of their sight. It was no more than two days before the horse came trotting again through the gates of the palace. And riding upon his back was his master, the Emperor, home again safe and sound.

  "What rejoicing there was then in the palace! The princess began to eat and to sleep, and she sang all day long because of her father's return. In every court of the palace there was gladness, except in that one where the horses were kept. There the Emperor's favorite steed, who had brought him back safely, never stopped whinnying. It would not eat, and it neighed so loudly that the Empress could hear its cries in her room on the innermost court.

  "'I am troubled, O Son of Heaven,' she said to the Emperor. 'While you were gone, our daughter grew so thin with grief that I feared for her life. So I let it be known that I would give her as bride to that one who should bring you back safe and sound. Could that be the reason why your good horse is unhappy? Could it be that he wishes the princess himself?'

  "The Emperor laughed. 'Absurd to think that a princess could spend her life with a horse,' he said to the Empress. 'A promise made to men cannot be claimed by a horse.'

  "The men servants placed the choicest grain in the manger of the Emperor's horse. But the animal would not touch it. He kept on neighing and whinnying until at last the Emperor lost patience. He called for his bow and he shot a sharp arrow into the side of the horse. He ordered his stablemen to take off the skin of the horse and to lay it to dry on the stones of the courtyard.

  "It happened that the Princess Tsan Nu crossed the courtyard where the horse's hide lay. As she stood for a moment beside it, the skin suddenly quivered. It rose from the ground and wrapped itself round her. More swiftly than lightning runs from one cloud to another, it flew up into the heavens and disappeared with the princess.

  "Again sadness filled the palace. Day after day the Emperor and the Empress looked up at the sky in the hope that the horse's skin would bring back their daughter. But for ten whole days nothing happened. Then one morning a servant came running to find his royal master.

  "'The horse's skin has returned, O Shining One,' he said, breathing hard. 'I saw it with my own eyes at the foot of the mulberry tree in the garden. And the princess is still inside the skin, for I saw her red robe.'

  "The Emperor and the Empress and all the men and maids of the court ran to the mulberry tree. They arrived just in time to see the Princess Tsan Nu step out of the horse's skin. But before they had time to speak to her or touch her, she turned into a gray worm and fell to eating the leaves of the mulberry tree.

  "In wonder her parents watched her. They came every day to see if she was still there. They begged her to take back the shape of their daughter, but she only went on chewing the tender green leaves. Then one day, when they came, they saw that she was winding herself in shining thread which she threw out of her worm's mouth. In a very short time she had quite disappeared. In their eagerness to find her again, even in the shape of a worm, they tried in vain to unwind the fine strands of the little house which she had spun for herself. Men say this sh
ining thread that Tsan Nu spun was the very first silk.

  "Look at that cloud!" cried the Emperor. "There in the center. Is not that our dear daughter?"

  "The Emperor and the Empress grieved for their daughter. Each day they sat sadly in the palace garden and wept. One morning, as they were weeping harder than ever, the Emperor happened to look up at the sky overhead.

  "'Look at that cloud!' he cried to his Empress. 'There in the center. Is not that our dear daughter riding my wretched horse? And see, she is followed by a long train of servants!'

  "It was indeed Tsan Nu. She flew down to earth and rode the horse into the garden. 'Do not weep for me, dear parents,' she said to her father and mother. 'The Jade Emperor has called me to live in his Heavenly Kingdom. Because of my love for my dear father he has made me a princess in his own palace. He has set me to watch over the worms that spin silken thread like that which I made under the mulberry tree. To you he gives the task of teaching our people how to make silk. You must unwind the tiny strands which my silkworms will spin, and you must twist them together into strong thread. Then there shall be made here in our country cloth so shining and fine that no other can equal it.

  "'Have no fear for me, Honored Parents,' Tsan Nu said in parting. 'In the Heavenly Kingdom I shall live forever and ever, and I shall be happy in my care of the silkworms.' She bowed to her parents. The horse switched his tail and they both disappeared into the clouds.

  "That is why, my treasures, the statue of Tsan Nu always shows her as the Silkworm Princess, with a horse's skin thrown over her head and her shoulders. It is because of this story that she has been given her other name: 'Lady with the Horse's Head.' And it is because the Jade Emperor put her in charge of the silkworms that we pray to her in the spring when the leaves on the mulberry trees are green and when the seller of silkworm eggs knocks at our gate."