folklore

Bear Writing

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In the twenty-sixth year of the Qianlong era, there was a beggar in Huqiu who raised a large bear, the size of a Sichuan horse, with fur as straight and dense as arrows. This bear could write and compose poems but could not speak. Those who wished to visit were allowed to watch for a fee of one wen. If you brought white paper and asked the bear to write, it would use large characters to write a Tang poem, demanding a fee of one hundred coins. 

Nine-Tailed Snake

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There was a man named Mao Ba(茅八) who, in his youth, went to Jiangxi to trade paper. In the deep mountains of Jiangxi, there were many paper mills. The people in the mills would close the doors as the sun set and warned Mao Ba not to go out, telling him, ‘There are many strange things in the mountains, not just ordinary tigers and wolves.’

One night, the moonlight was very bright, and Mao Ba couldn’t sleep. 

Smoke Dragon

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Zhang Ningren(張寧人) said that the elderly man next door likes to smoke. He holds a bamboo pipe that is more than five feet long and has been using it for over thirty years.

One day, a Daoist priest walked by the door, saw the smoking pipe in the old man’s hand, and said to him, ‘This thing has absorbed human essence for a long time and has become a Smoke Dragon. 

The Immortal Child Brings Rain

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A severe drought occurred in Guangdong, and Governor-General Sun Gong(孫公) prayed to the gods for rain, but it was ineffective. At that time, while he was inspecting Chaozhou, he saw over a thousand people gathered on a hill ahead. He sent someone to inquire, and the answer he received was, “Watching the immortal child.”

Previously, in Chaozhou, there was a villager surnamed Sun. His twelve-year-old son, along with a group of village boys, was playing on the hill.