88 



they resembled cows, horses, donkeys or sheep. Forming a row 

 of fifty they followed one another into the mouth of the Han 

 river ; then they returned to the temple. So they went to and 

 back several miles, sometimes hidden sometimes visible. This 

 lasted for three days and then stopped. 



§ 15. Dragon's pearls. 



According to Chwang tsze' a "pearl of a thousand pieces of 

 gold {ts^ien hiny is certainly to be found in a pool of nine layers, 

 (i.e. very deep) under the throat of a li-lung or "horse-dragon". 

 The Sh uh i H^ (sixth century) states_that_so^cal^ 

 are spitj out bv^ dra gons. like_snake-jLearls bv-Snakes. In the Lung, 

 ching luh^ me read about a dragon which in the shape of a 

 little child was playing with three pearls before the entrance of 

 his den. When a man approached he fled into the cavern and, 

 reassuming his dragon form, put the pearls in his left ear. The 

 man cut off the ear, in order to take possession of the pearls,' 

 but they vanished together witli the dragon himself. 



Another legend * tells us about a man who was very fond <ii 

 wine and from a female sien in the mountains obtained a pearl 

 which she said to be kept by the dragons in their mouths in 

 order to replace wine. 



De Groot ^ mentions "Thunder-pearls" (|f 3|^, lei-chu), "which 

 dragons have dropped from their mouths, and which may thoroughly 

 illuminate a whole house during the night". "Perhaps", says 

 De Groot, "these objects may be the relics of an age of stone". 



§ 16. Dragon's eggs. 



Dragon's eggs are b eautiful stones pick e d up in the mountains 

 or at the^iver sideT^nd preserved till they split amidst thunder, 



1 nmmm- ^^^z^M^^jimzmmmm 



3 §|| iK^ ^ , written in the T'ang dynasty by Liu Tsung-yuen, M1\ ^ j^ , 

 Ch. II. 



4 Lang Men ki, jp|} ^ p^ (see above p. 74, note 6), Ch. d:l . 



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