Many and various are the ways of bewitching folk. Sometimes sweet-tasting drugs are put in food, the eating of which sends the victim into a trance and causes him to follow blindly the person who has bewitched him. This is commonly known as 'hitting the wad'; south of the Yangtze it is known as 'dragging the wad'. It is young children who are most frequently bewitched and harmed in this way.

Then there is the art of turning men into animals, known for short as 'making animals'. This is less frequently encountered in the north, but is more common south of the Yellow River.

One day, a man came to an inn in Yangzhou, leading with him five donkeys. He tied them up near the stable, telling the landlord he would be gone a few minutes and giving him strict instructions to give them neither food nor water during his absence. He had not been gone long before the donkeys, which had been left to stand out in the glare of the sun, began to kick and bray and make a terrible racket. The landlord untied them and was about to tether them in the shade when suddenly they spotted water and made a rush to get at it. The landlord let them drink, and no sooner had the water touched their lips than they began rolling on the ground and were transformed into five women. The astonished landlord asked them what was going on, but they seemed incapable of speech, so he took them and hid them in one of his private apartments. Presently their owner returned to the courtyard of the inn, bringing with him five sheep. He asked the landlord at once what had become of his donkeys, and the landlord replied by showing him politely to a seat and offering him food and wine.

Caption

They were transformed into five women.

'Enjoy your meal, sir. Your donkeys will be brought to you in a moment.'

The landlord meanwhile went out into the yard and gave the sheep some water, on drinking which they were transformed into five young boys. He secretly reported the matter to the local yamen, and constables were sent to arrest the sorcerer, who died under torture.

49.

THE LITTLE MANDARIN.

A certain Hanlin Academician, whose name I can no longer remember, was dozing in his study during the daytime, when suddenly he saw a little procession filing through the room. There were horses the size of frogs, men less than finger-high, a retinue of several dozen insignia-bearers, and then a mandarin in a palanquin, wearing a black gauze cap and a ceremonial gown with an embroidered border, who was carried out through the doorway with great pomp.

The Academician marvelled greatly to himself at this extraordinary sight, and wondered if perhaps his sleepy eyes were playing a trick on him. Then one of the little men turned back into the room and came towards his bed, carrying a small fist-sized bundle, wrapped in felt.

'My master,' he declared, 'apologizes for seeming impolite, sir, and wishes to make you a present of this.'

The little man stood there but showed no sign of presenting either the bundle or anything else. A little later he chuckled to himself. 'Such a trifle I didn't think you would have much use for it, sir! You might as well give it to me...'

The Academician nodded, and the little man set off happily once more, carrying the bundle on his back, and was soon lost to view.

And the shame of it was that the Academician had been too timid to ask him who they all were.

Caption

He saw a little procession filing through the room.

50.

DYING TOGETHER.

In a village near Jiyang, there was a man by the name of Zhu who at the age of fifty or so fell ill and died. His family had come into the dead man's room and were busy adjusting their mourning clothes when suddenly they heard him call out, loud and clear, and hurried over to the bed. Discovering to their delighted astonishment that he was indeed alive, they asked him to tell them something about his experience, but the only person he wanted to speak to was his wife.

'When I went, it never occurred to me to try and come back. But then, after a few miles, I kept thinking to myself: I'm leaving my wife behind! There'd be no joy left in life for an old body like you, having to depend on the children for everything, winter and summer, year in, year out. So I decided to come back and take you with me.'

At first they ignored this as the delirious raving of a man newly revived from the dead. But then he proceeded to repeat the exact same words.

'That's all very well and fine,' said his wife, 'but you've only this minute come back to life. How will you manage to die a second time?'

He waved aside this objection.

'That is not a problem. Just you go and see to any last-minute chores that need doing.'

At first she stood there motionless, smiling. Then she went out of the room, and returned a few minutes later.

'I've seen to everything,' she lied.

'Now dress yourself properly,' he said.

At first she refused to do this, but when he grew impatient Caption

The only person he wanted to speak to was his wife.

and urged her to hurry, she agreed to put on her best going-out gown, to humour him. All this time the ladies of the family were sniggering behind their hands.

Zhu now lay down with his head on the pillow and commanded his wife to do likewise, tapping on the bed beside him with his hand.

'Our children are all around us,' she protested. 'They will laugh at us if we lie down on the bed together like that in front of them.'

He thumped the bed.

'Dying together is no laughing matter!' he cried.

Seeing that he was in earnest and growing angrier by the minute, the family urged the lady to gratify this whim of his. She rested her head on the pillow and lay there next to him, stiff as a corpse. The members of the family were just beginning to snigger again, when they saw the smile fade from her face and her eyes close. A long silence ensued, and they thought she must have fallen asleep. But when they went up closer, to their horror they discovered that her skin was stone-cold and that she was no longer breathing. Her husband was dead too.

During the twenty-first year of the reign of Kangxi, I was given a detailed account of this event by the wife of old man Zhu's younger brother. She worked in the household of Judge Bi.

51.

THE ALLIGATOR'S REVENGE.

The alligator has its origins in the region to the west of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It is dragonlike in appearance, but shorter than a true dragon, and only able to fly sideways. From time to time, it emerges from the river and scours the banks for food usually geese and ducks. Sometimes alligators are caught and these are sold to members of the Chen and Ke families (descendants of the Red Turban leader Chen Youliang), who have traditionally been eaters of alligator meat. People from other families never venture to eat it.

A traveller coming from west of the river captured one and kept it tied up with a rope in his boat. One day, he had moored in the Qiantang River when the rope worked its way loose and the creature suddenly leaped into the water. The next instant, great waves rose up and overturned the boat, which capsized and sank into the river.

52.

SHEEP SKIN.

A certain gentleman of Shaanxi Province, who passed the third degree in the year xinchou, was able to remember his previous incarnation. He said he had formerly been a scholar who had died in middle life and had appeared before Yama, the King of the Nether World, where he had seen with his own eyes the cauldrons and woks filled with boiling oil, the very instruments of torture he had read about on Earth. In the eastern corner of the hall stood a number of frames from which were suspended the skins of various animals pigs, sheep, goats, dogs, horses. When the clerk of the court called out a name from his list, and the sentence specified into which animal form a certain person was to be reborn, the man referred to would be stripped naked, and an animal skin was taken down from the designated frame, for him to put on.

It soon came to the turn of the gentleman, and he heard the King pronounce his sentence: 'To be reborn as a sheep!'

One of the demon-assistants promptly took down a white sheep skin and was putting it on him, when the clerk remarked that the man had during his lifetime saved another man's life. The King consulted the files carefully.

'This man is to be spared!' he announced. 'His evil deeds were many, but this one good deed has redeemed them all!'

The demon-assistant then tried to remove the sheep skin, but it had already stuck fast. Two other demons came up, and by dint of much pulling, holding the man's arms tight and pressing against his chest, they finally succeeded in detaching it, causing him an indescribable agony in the process. The skin only came off in bits and pieces, however, and they were unable to remove Caption

They finally succeeded in detaching the sheep skin.

it cleanly. A piece the size of a man's hand remained stuck to the man's shoulder.

When he was reborn, he had a big white furry birthmark on his back, like a sheep-skin patch. However many times the hair was cut back, it always grew again.

53.

SHARP SWORD.

At the end of the Ming dynasty, the region around Ji'nan was overrun by bandits. Every township had its garrison of soldiers, and whenever a bandit was apprehended he was swiftly executed. The town of Zhangqiu had an especially large number of such bandits, and one of the government soldiers stationed there was known to possess a very sharp sword. His blade cut clean through anything, as though it were cleaving the air. One day, a group of a dozen bandits were caught and brought to the execution ground. One of them recognized the soldier with the sharp sword. 'Everyone says you've got the sharpest sword,' he mumbled. 'They say it can cut a head clean off in a single blow. I beg you, be the one to kill me!'

'Very well,' replied the soldier. 'Be careful to stay right next to me.'

The bandit followed the soldier closely to the execution ground. The soldier drew his sword and swung it once. The man's head tumbled to the ground and rolled a few feet. And as it rolled, it gasped, 'That is a sharp sword!'