12d 

 § 4f. Appearing as snakes, dogs, or rats. 



The Poll mmiff so yen ' relates about a child -which in the 

 T'ong-kwang era (923-926) met a white snake on the^road, tied 

 it with a rope and swayed its head to and fro till it fell down. 

 In a moment a thunderstorm arose and the child was carried into 

 the air, where it was struck by lightning and dropped dead on the 

 ground. On its back vermilion writing was to be read, announcing 

 that Heaven had punished it for having killed a Celestial dragon. 



Two dragons in the shape of mao dogs (^ ^^), ridden through 

 the air by sien, are mentioned in the Lieh sien chvfen ^. A sien 

 brought them to a diviner, more than 100 years old, and invited 

 him to ride on them together with an old woman. According 

 to the Lang huen M ^ two guardian gods of a cave palace were 

 dragons. The Kiang-si fung-chi * speaks about a very deep 

 "Dragon-rearing pond" near the castle of Kwang ch'ang district 

 in Kien ch'ang fu, inhabited by a dragon. Over the pond there 

 was a stone tray, in which remains of food were always laid 

 for the animal, which used to change into a black dog and eat 

 the food. This pond was still there in the author's time, and a 

 "Dragon-well temple" had been built on the spot. 



In the seventh year of the Kia-yiu era (1062) an enormous 

 white rat was. seen smelling the sacrificial dishes offered in the 

 temple on the Great White Mountain in Fu fung district (Shen-si 

 province), a mountain with much ling, i. e. where the divine 

 power of its god as clearly manifested itself in hearing the 

 prayers of the believers as was the case on the Japanese moun- 

 tain of the same name (Hakusan). Old people declared the rat, 

 which only smelled the dishes but did not eat them, to be a dragon ^. 



§ 5. A cow transformed into a dragon- 

 The author of the Hwai-ngan-fu chi " tells us how a cow 



i Jfj ^^ JS ^ , ascribed to Sun KwANG-HiEN, ^ -4^ ^ , also called Meng- wen, 



^ ^^' ^ ^^g^ official under the founder of the Sung dynasty (T'^ai tsu, 960 — 976) 

 (cf. De GiiOOT, Rel. Syst. Vol. V, p. 527, note 2). T. S., same section, Ch. 129, p. 14a. 

 2 T. S., same section, Ch. 131, p. 2fe. 3 Quoted ibidem, p. 36. 



4 T. S., same section, Ch. 129, p. 126. 



5 Tung-fo chi-lin, '^^^^i^^ desultory notes by Su Tdng-p'o, |^ ^' J^ , 



e. Su Shih, ^ ^, a famous poet who lived 1036—1101; T. S., same section, Ch. 



130, p. 4a. 



6 »J^ ^^ V^ ^, "Memoirs concerning Hwai-ngan-fu (in the pro v. of Kiang-su); 



T. S., ibidem, p. 126, . 



Verb. Kon. Akad. v. Wetensoli. (Afd. letterk.) N. R. Dl. XIII, N° 2. 9 



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