83 



Kiah and could give the dragons drink and food. The Emperor 

 praised him and gave him the family name of Dragon-ruler 

 (Yu-lung)". 



§ 9. Dra gons ridde n by sien, or dr awing the cars 

 o fgods and holy men . 



The "Traditions on the Files of Immortals", Lieh sien ch'ufen \ 

 repeatedly mention sien who rode away on dragons through the 

 air. We often read also of flying dragons or ying-lung drawing 

 the cars of gods or holy men. As we shall see below (Ch. VII), 

 Hwang Ti rode on a dragon, and Tii's carriage was drawn by 

 two of these divine animals. In the Li Sao, quoted above ^, 

 K^ilh Yuen's car was drawn by four ¥iu or by flying dragons. 

 The Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty (B. C. 140-86) once ascended 

 the Ten ling tower and after the second night watch saw Si 

 wang mu, the. "Royal Mother of the West", arriving in a carriage 

 of purple clouds, drawn by nine-coloured, spotted dragons ^ 

 These ideas are, of course, closely connected with those about 

 dragon-horses, winged and scaly horses of extraordinary size, 

 treated above in Ch. II, § 3, pp. 56 sqq. 



§ 10. Dragon-boats. 



Dragon-boats are mentioned in the Hwai nan tszS *, where, 

 these ships are called " dragon-boats^(and) yih-heads'" (^| ^^ ^ ■^). 

 This is explained as follows by the commentator: " Dragon-boats 

 are big ships adorned wit h carved dragon- o rnaments (]^); the 

 "yiE is a b ig bird, tne pain ted_shape-t)f which~t»^^attached to the 

 4uxtwsI^^o£^I^ps^\_WEi^ WaLiAM^^ the y^'^"as~"^'a^MIId~ 



of seabird that flies high, whose figure is gaily painted on the 

 sterns of junks, to denote their swift sailing; the descriptions 

 are contradictory, but its picture rudely resembles a heron". 

 On. these boats, which were used by the Emperors for pleasure 



1 -^ll Ylll 'fil ) ■written in the first century before our era by the famous philoso- 

 pher Liu Hang, ^J |hJ ; quoted T. S., Sect. ^ 0, Ch. 131, ^\. |1|, pp. la, 

 2b. Cf. the Shen sien ch'wen, "Traditions on the divine sien", quoted ibidem, p. 3a.' 



2 This chapter, § 7, p. 77, note 8. 



3 Han Wu-ti nei ch'wen (attributed to Pan Ku, but probably written in the 3rd 



century), quoted ibidem, p. 3a: 3E#M^^^^^l|;^'feSff|- 



4 About 140 B.C.; Ch. VIII (2JS ^)- 



5 Chin. Engl. Diet, p. 1092, s. v. yih. - ' 



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