54 



lodging house. There was a purple, black vapour which hid the 

 sky, remained the whole day, and then dispersed. That very day 

 the Emperor died" '. 



Sometimes a dragon's appearance was a sign of impending 

 calamity in the form of inundations. Such was the case in A. D. 

 967, according to the Books of the Sung dynasty ^ We read there 

 the following : "In the summer of the fifth year of the K'ien-teh 

 era (967) it rained in the capital, and a black dragon appeared. 

 Its tail was on the border of the clouds, and it flew from North- 

 west to Southeast. The diviners explained it to be (an omen of) 

 big floods. The next year in twenty four prefectures the water 

 destroyed the ricefields and the houses" ^ 



D. Dragons ap'pearing in wrong places. 



If a dragon, symbol of Imperial power, is born in a commoner's 

 house or comes out of his well, this is a very bad omen for the 

 dynasty, the Emperor personally, or one of his feudal lords, for 

 it means degradation from the highest dignity to a common 

 state, and death of the ruler or of one of his representatives. 



The Books of the Tsin dynasty * contain the following passage : 

 "Under the reign of Sun Hao of the Wu dynasty (the fourth 

 and last Emperor of that dynasty, A. D. 242 — 283), in the T'ien- 

 ts'eh era (A. D. 275 — 276), a dragon was hatched in (the house 

 of) a family in Ch^ang-sha, and ate the chickens. King Fang ^ says 

 in his Yih yao ° : 'If a dragon is hatched in a man's house, a 



1 ^^^mJu±r>m. m^^i^mmnmM. *a 



2 -tj^ ^, Sung-shu (A. D. 960-1279), Sect. ^^ ^^. 



* W # (^- °- 265-420), Oh. XXIX, nr 19, Sect. S. ift ^ , "fC , p. 24a 



5 ^ ^, the famous diviner of the first century before our era, mentioned above, 

 p. 47, note 1. 



fi >a -to. 



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