CHINESE FOLKLORE AND SOME WESTERN ANALOGIES. 591 



which the earth seems to renew her normal functions as though uncon- 

 scious of her prolonged repose. Various phases of the idea present 

 themselves, ranging from the three hundred and sixty years' repose of 

 the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus to the supposed death-like torpor of great 

 heroes like Charlemagne, Barbarossa, and Jengiz Khan, whose .slum- 

 ber, though still unbroken, is some day to terminate when they arise 

 and lead their people to new victories. A Christianized form of the 

 myth occurs in the mediaeval legend of a monk, who, wondering how 

 the Psalmist's " thousand years of the Lord " could be as one day, went 

 forth into the woods to meditate upon the mystery. There he heard 

 a bird singing with such inetiable sweetness as to keep him spellbound 

 all the afternoon; but when he returned to his monastery he discovered 

 after some perplexing experiences that he had remained listening to 

 God's tuneful messenger a thousand years, which had passed as one day. 



What we may term the Rip Van Winkle type of story is closely 

 paralleled in the Taoist legend of Wang Chih, a patriarch of the sect. 

 "■ Wandering one day in the mountains of Kiichow to gather tirewood, 

 he entered a grotto in which some aged men were seated intent upon 

 a game of chess. He laid down his ax and looked on at their game, 

 in the course of which one of the old men handed him a thing in shape 

 and size like a date stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. No 

 sooner had he tasted it than he became oblivious of hunger and thirst. 

 After some time had elapsed one of the players said: ' It is long since 

 you came here; you should go home now.' Whereupon Wang Chih 

 proceeding to pick up his ax found that its handle had moldered into 

 dust. On repairing to his home he discovered that centuries had passed 

 since the time when he had left it for the mountains, and that no vestige 

 of his kinsfolk remained. Retiring to a retreat among the hills, he 

 devoted himself to the rites of Taoism, and finally attained inmior- 

 tiility^'i— a conclusion only differing in degree from that of Kips 

 adventure, whose immortality is of another sort. 



Another similar legend— a favorite of Chinese story-tellers— makes 

 the experience befall two young men while gathering her))s among the 

 hills. Here they discover a fairy bridge in charge of two maidens, 

 who are as charming as they subsequently prove to be complaisant. 

 The girls invite them to cross to the land of pure delight beyond the 

 bridge, and after a summer day's enjoyment of the enchanted land and 

 its people thev return to find that seven generations have been born 

 and passed away since their little holiday excursion, and that th(>y are 

 centenarians. The introduction of the magic bridge in this account 

 reminds us of another feature familiar to Teutonic mythology-the 

 bridge connecting the celestial city with the earth, the final crossing of 

 which, in the Gotterdammerung, completes the heroic cycle of the 

 Nibelungen lay. In each case the obvious origi^n of the conceit is to^ 



1 Dennys, Folk Lore of China, 98. 



