The Magic Bird and Other Folktales from China

This Hawaiian myth has a similar theme to myths told in other cultures. When she is turned away, she visits the neighboring house, where she is received warmly and given much food. The king is so ashamed of his secret that he wears a special crown to cover them and kills every barber who cuts his hair. They find one named Johnny Gruagach and bring him back to the castle in ropes. This tale comes from the Wampanoag people of Massachusetts near Plymouth Colony.

About the Story

The story goes that back when the world was young a great giant named Maushop lived with the Wampanoag and loved them deeply. He took care of them and helped them survive in the wild, but eventually the people became too dependent on him, so he turned himself into a great white whale and swam away so they would learn to fend for themselves.

This Costa Rican tale is about a young prince and his two older brothers who go in search of a bird with magical healing properties to cure their blind father. In most cases I have retold them in my own words, but have included the simplified Chinese characters for proper names and occasional other terms. Retelling rather than translating them frees them from any single Chinese source.

It also makes it possible to provide explanations useful to English speakers. In most cases I have added a dramatis personae list for the same reason. In these retellings I have tried to assume the tone of a Chinese storyteller, but I admit that there is a distinctly American twang to it.

Most students, in my experience, actually prefer that. In a very few cases I have provided a full translation of a written version that is so widely circulated that most people treat it as the "real" version. The extract from the "Platform Sutra" is an example.

Or I have provided a translation of a less common text that I happened to want to use in class. An example is one of the tales of transformed foxes. Most of the retold stories are in a single data base that produces a common format when they are displayed. The stories overlap to some extent with some of the most famous Chinese novels , since the two genres have always borrowed liberally from each other, novels often being compilations of folk traditions, and folk tales and theatricals being extracted stories from novels until it is difficult to be sure which came first.

Stories Associated With Festivals China is famous for its calendrical festivals, most of which have stories associated with them. Sometimes the stories have to do with the origin of a festival; sometimes they link to themes of the event such as love, or the moon ; and sometimes they are set at festival time and come to be associated for that reason. Lunar dates are here given as a month number followed by a day number.

For example 01m15d refers to the first month, fifteenth day. Solar festival stories are blocked at the end of the list. This section contains the plots of some commonly performed traditional Chinese operas, which nearly always also turn out to be love stories.

Most of the stories, which come from many different periods and sources, are widely circulated outside of the world of theatre, and the operatic versions, like modern film adaptations of famous stories, obviously seek to optimize opportunities for theatrical moments: This is not a complete catalog of classical opera plots, of course. But all of them are quite famous, and indeed many of the characters in them are so well known that Microsoft's Chinese character input system correctly identified many of the names as I was typing them in, producing the correct characters with no need of further editing.

I have completely retold the stories here, based on their theatrical versions. In the interest of being concise and coherent, I have freely modified potential contradictions and have added to the list from time to time, but my earliest and still main source was:.

Without pausing a moment, the horse began leaping from one ice floe to another. Waves showered them with icy spray, so that Chen was soaked and shivering. But he held his tongue and said not a word. He rode to the entrance, sprang from the horse, and hurried into a huge hall. Sitting there at looms were dozens of fairy ladies, who turned to stare at him, then whispered to each other excitedly.

A lady near the door rose from her loom to meet him. You are the first mortal ever to reach our palace. What good fortune brings you here?

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The fairy was so beautiful that for a moment Chen could only stare. Li-en gazed shyly downward. None of us has been able to match it. We wish to keep it here till we can.

Li-en looked alarmed, and a flurry of whispers arose in the room. She stepped away to speak softly with several others, then returned to Chen.

Only let us keep the brocade for the rest of the day, so we can try to finish our own. Tomorrow you may take it back with you. The fairies worked busily to finish their brocades. Chen sat near Li-en at her loom. As she wove, he told her about his life in the human world, and she told him about hers at Sun Palace.

Many smiles and glances passed between them. When darkness fell, the fairies worked on by the light of a magic pearl. One by one the fairies finished or left off, and went out of the hall. Li-en was the last one there, and it was almost dawn when she was done. If only she could come and teach us herself. Then Li-en had an idea. She softly said a spell. Then she left the hall, with a last long smiling gaze at Chen.

When Chen woke up, the sun was just rising. He looked around the hall for Li-en, but saw no one. Back he raced, across the Icy Sea and over Fiery Mountain. Your mother is dying! Chen put them on. One step, two, three, then he was racing over the countryside faster than he could believe possible. In no time, he was home. He rushed into the cottage and found the widow in bed, pale and quiet. Color came back to her face, and she seemed already stronger.