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Reading Notes: China, Part A


In the story "The Lady of the Moon", a prince named Hou I was a great archer. There were ten suns in the sky, and they got so hot that people could not stand them. The emperor ordered Hou I to shoot them and he shot down nine of the suns. Hou I rode his harder to Kunlun Mountain and found the Queen-Mother of the Jasper Sea there. She gave him the herb of immorality, which he then hid in his room.
His wife Tschang O ate some of the herb and floated up to the the clouds. She reached the moon and has lived in a castle there since as the Lady of the Moon.
A emperor of the Tang dynasty was with two sorcerers and one made a bridge up to the moon. They climbed up and found the castle, on which was inscribed "The Spreading Halls of Crystal Cold." A cassia tree grew next to it. A man sat in the tree and cut off branches. One of the sorcerers decided this was the man in the moon and the tree must be cut down every thousand years so it does not cover the beauty of the moon.
They entered into the castle. It had walls and columns made of liquid crystal and cages filled with fish and birds. The Lady of the Moon entered wearing white and rainbow and commended the emperor on finding his way to the moon. She called for her attendants and they flew in on white birds, and music played. After the dance ended, the emperor returned to earth and had the songs he heard written down.

Story source: The Chinese Fairy Book, ed. by R. Wilhelm and translated by Frederick H. Martens (1921)

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