578 CHINESE FOLKLORE AND SOME WESTERN ANALOGIES. 



fashions a furnace and kettle; Wood Sire on the East smelts a tripod 

 of the purest of the live metals — oold, silver, brass, iron, and tin; Gold 

 Matron from the West, taking live colored earths, moulds a crucible; 

 Water Sire "opened a precious crystal rock and caught the fresh genii 

 water as it dripped down and put it in the crucible, while Red Sire, 

 facing the South. ])ored straight into the body of a nudbcrr}^ tree and 

 obtained fresh genii tire to boil the water with." 



Thus the live elders, leaving no detail unattended, "exercised their 

 whole minds and souls, laying aside every other thought, care, and 

 work while perfecting this one; at one time increasing the tire and 

 now diminishing it till the tire had attained its full measure of heat, 

 or neaily so; and on the eighty Hrst day of the process a beautiful 

 cloud hung over the furnace and the caldron and sweet dew fell on the 

 Sou jNIountain, Gold M;iti"on and Wood Sire, preceiving that the 

 rotining process was completed, removed the cover and, lo! two little 

 things lay in each other's embrace at the bottom of the dish. Gold 

 Matron put forth her hand and took up one at random and. ])chold, 

 it was a male child! Wood Sire raised the other and, lo! it Avas a 

 female infant. Both were exceedingh'^ delighted." 



^iever was honmnculus more carefully conceived or accepted ))v his 

 creators with greater rejoicing. They all " leaped for joy and mutual 

 delight."' it is said, and then, returning each to his habitation, left the 

 children to "imbibe the genial influences of the sun and moon in the 

 grotto till they nmtually understood the relations and the mysteries of 

 conjugal life." In time children were born and. the earth became 

 peopled with their progeny. 



In the Japanese account of creation, related in the s«acred scripture 

 of Shinto, called the Kojiki, the formation of the earth — or rather of 

 the Japanese Islands — is immediately followed b}^ the birth of a 

 number of kami, deities imagined after the manner of the gods of 

 Greece as only more powerful human l)eings. There is no diti'erence 

 apparentlv in the process b}^ which the divine pair, Izanagi and Izanami, 

 deputed to the task, produce islands and divinities. At length in giv- 

 ing birth to the Fire God. Izanami is bui'nt and dies. Her spouse 

 forthwith slays the hateful oHspring, and then occurs one of the most 

 remarkable episodes in the epos, when he journeys to the underworld, 

 Orpheus-like, to bid his wife return. 



"Thereupon his Augustness Izanagi, wishing to meet and see his 

 younger sister [his wife], followed after her to the Land of Hades. So 

 when from the palace she raised the door and came out to meet him, 

 his Augustness Izanagi spoke, saying: 'Thine Augustness, my lovely 

 younger sister! The lands that I and thou made are not ^^et finished 

 making; so come back!' Then her Augustness Izanami answered, say- 

 ing: ' Lamentable indeed that thou camest not sooner! I have eaten 

 of the furnace of Hades. Nevertheless, as I reverence the entry here 

 of thine Augustness, my lovely elder brother, I wish to return. More- 



