89 



rain_aDd^j[ia3! kDe3s and -i]ie_^OTing dragon ascends to the sky. 

 Much_w;aimL_comes_osL_St.tl^^ 



appea£s^n_theform__of_ a very sm allsnake. or water-lizard, which 

 grows larger_and~larger)JDLji^^ moments. ' An old. woman, wlio 

 "hadr-fburmfive such eggs in the grass, took the little snakes to 

 the river and let them go, whereupon the dragons gave her the 

 faculty of foretelling the future. Thjis "DragOn-mother", as the 

 people called ^er, because, when she was washing clothes in the 

 river, fishes (the subjects of the dragons) used to dance before 

 her, became so famous on account of her true prophecies, that 

 even the Emperor wished to consult her. She died, however, on 

 her way to the capital, and was buried on the eastern bank of 

 the river; but the dragons made a violent storm arise and trans- 

 ferred the grave to the opposite side of the stream. ^ 



The same story is told in the Nan yueh chi^, but there the 

 dragons are said to -have several times drawn back the ship by 

 which the old woman against her will was transported to the 

 capital. At last the plan was given up for fear of the dragons. 

 According to the Kwah i chi* there is always much wind and 

 rain near the Dragon- mother's grave; then people say: "The 

 dragons wash the grave". 



In • the Shan-si fung-chi ^ we read about a dragon- woman who 

 jumped out of a big egg, found at the side of a pool. She gave 

 wealth to the house where she lived, but at last she ran away 

 and in the form of a snake disappeared into the crack of a rock 

 in the mountains. 



The author of the Mung ¥i pih fan " says that he often saw 

 a dragon's egg, preserved in a case in the Kin shan monastery 

 in Jun cheu (an old name for Chin-kiang-fii in Kiang-su). It 

 resembled a hen's egg, but it was much larger. Its weight was 



i T'ai-pHng kwang ki, Ch. 424; Lang huen ki, Cb. ~K ; KwSi-sin tsah-shih suh- 



tsih, ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ . written by Cheu Mih, ^ ^ , wbo lived in the 

 second half of the thirteenth and in the beginning of the fourteenth century; Ch. ~J\ , 

 p. 23. 2 T'^ai-pHng kwang ki, ibidem. 



4 T. S., Ch. 130, p. 7a. 



5 lil ® ii ^' 1"°*^'* T.S., Ch. 131, ^|» ||, p. 17a. 



® ^^ ^ ^^ Wt' written about the middle of the eleventh century by Ch'^en 

 KwoH, y^ i^ (cf. Bretschneider, Botanicon Sinicum, Journal of the North-China 

 branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1881, New series, Nr XVI, Part I, pp. 137, 173, 

 nr 510). 



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