NO. I 



CH UAN MIAO SONGS AND STORIES — GRAHAM 



275 



the roof, and on the right of the door seven 

 more/* and these can behead demons and 

 keep away the demonical creatures. 



A Son-lnlaw Stole from His Father-in-latv 

 (154) 



Once there was a poor son-in-law. He joked 

 with his father-in-law. He saw that his father- 

 in-law was wearing silk trousers. He said to 

 his father-in-law, "I am clever at stealing. 

 I will steal your trousers." The father-in-law 

 said, "If I see you steal my trousers, then I 

 will say 5'ou are skillful." The son-in-law 

 said, "Then I will come and steal." 



That night the son-in-law took a bamboo 

 tube and filled it with yellow dirt. He waited 

 until his father-in-law was asleep, then he 

 put the dirt inside his father-in-law's trousers. 

 He (the father-in-law) took off his trousers 

 and hung them up on the wall. Then the 

 son-in-law took advantage of this and stole 

 them. 



Next day the father-in-law arose and saw 

 that they were gone. In the afternoon the 

 son-in-law ran to him and said, "Please look 

 at my silk trousers. Yellow soil dirtied my 

 trousers. Another said that it was human 

 night soil, but I say it isn't." 



An Ill-treated Daughter-in-law (173) 



There was a family whose son married a 

 wife. At first, when she had just arrived, the 

 husband and his wife were both harmonious. 

 Later the whole family hated the daughter- 

 in-law and constantly harmed her but did 

 not kill her. Her husband then built a special 

 grass hut for her and made her live there 

 alone. Daily she went alone to gather pig 

 grass (grass to feed the pigs) and went and 

 sold it, and it was sufficient for her living 

 expenses. Her husband then thought of an- 

 other plan by which he would cause her 

 death. 



That night her husband tore a hole in the 

 hut she lived in and carried a load of stones 

 to stone her with. But the stones her husband 

 threw in she picked up, and they were ingots 

 of silver. After several days the husband 

 thought she had been killed by the stones and 

 went to look at her. He saw her sitting on 

 her bed and asked her, "Why don't you go 

 and cut grass for pigs and sell it?" She said, 

 "I am going to take down my tent." Her 

 husband constantly spoke to her thus, but 



^^ There is a similar custom among the Tibetans 

 in Sikong Province, China. The word here trans- 

 lated sword could also mean dagger. 



she would not go. Her husband then lifted 

 aside her bed and saw her silver. Then he 

 took her home and took care of her and told 

 her she need not do any work. Afterward 

 she was unwilling to sit around idly and went 

 about doing some work. 



One day she went to feed the pigs and 

 slipped beside the pigpen, and she turned 

 over another pig trough full of silver. 



After these things that family did not dare 

 to abuse her any more. 



A Ferryman Was a Rip Van Winkle (178) 



In ancient times there was a man. He was 

 fond of running the ferryboat every day. 



One day he took the boat to the shore of 

 the river and tied it there. He saw a cave in 

 the cliff on the shore. He went alone into the 

 cave, and suddenly there was another sky and 

 there were people going back and forth in 

 the cave. They invited him to stay inside, and 

 he remained there three days before returning. 



But his boat had disappeared. Then he 

 went and asked the people beside the river 

 about it. They said to him, "Now we do not 

 know about your boat. We have only heard 

 our master say that formerly there was a 

 fisherman who went into this mountain, and 

 he did not come back out. His boat rotted 

 away." 



Then he knew that he had been gone 30 

 years, but he did not know where he had 

 gone to. He therefore wrote this song to 

 commemorate it. 



The Good Fortune of Two Old People (181) 



In most ancient times there were two 

 people, husband and wife, whose children 

 had all died. They wept every day. 



At that time behind their house in the ditch 

 there was a spring. One night there was sud- 

 denly a white-whiskered old man who came 

 and talked to them in their dreams and said 

 to them, "Tomorrow you shut up your 

 chickens well, because tomorrow I will pass 

 by here. I am afraid your chickens will seize 

 me and eat me. But you can open a small 

 ditch for me in your guest room." 



The two old people awoke and talked about 

 it. The dreams of both of them were the 

 same. Then they said, "Tomorrow we can do 

 in that way and we will see what queer thing 

 will happen." 



Next day, during the afternoon, suddenly 

 in broad daylight there were several gusts of 

 hard wind and a black cloud formed in the 

 clear sky and a heavy rain fell. From the 

 spring in their ditch under the eaves there 



