FABLE AND FOLKLORE 207 



Garuda also appears in Japanese legendary art as gario, 

 or binga, or bingacho, or karobinga, half woman, half 

 bird, a sort of winged and feathered angel with a tail like 

 a phenix and legs like a crane. This reminds us of the 

 harpies of Greece. The Malays recognize the image, and 

 when a cloud obscures the sun Perak men will say: 

 "Gerda is spreading his wings to dry." 



The Chinese, and after them the Japanese, had a 

 phenix-like bird in their mythical aviary, which persists 

 in the faith of the more simple-minded of their peoples, 

 and as a fruitful motive in the decorative art of each. 

 It was one of the four supernatural creatures that in 

 ancient Chinese philosophy symbolized the four quarters 

 of the heavens. The Taoists, whose religious ideas are 

 older than Confucianism and prevailed especially among 

 the humble and unlearned, called it the Scarlet Bird, and 

 associated it with the element Fire, and with their mys- 

 tic number 7. Archaic pictures show a crested bird with 

 long tail-feathers — a figure that might well be meant for 

 a peacock. The creature itself is said not to have been 

 seen by mortal eyes since the time of Confucius, but it 

 has by no means been forgotten, for it is the fung- 

 whang, or feng-huang (which is the names of the male 

 and the female of the species conjoined) ; and it lives 

 even now on embroidered screens and painted vases, or 

 proudly distinguishes royal robes, from the Thibetan 

 mountains to the Yellow Sea. 



A recent writer on Eastern art 68 describes the proper 

 fung as a gorgeously colored bird with a long tail. Its 

 feathers are red, azure, yellow, white, and black, the five 

 colors belonging to the five principal virtues; and the 

 Chinese ideograms for uprightness, humanity, virtue, 

 honesty, and sincerity, are impressed on various parts of 



