130 



became a dragou. A rich farmer who possessed a large herd of 

 cattle one night dreamt that one of his cows said to him: "I 

 have become a dragon and have fought with the dragon of the 

 Sang-k'ii lake, but without conquering him. You must bind 

 small knives upon my horns". The next day he discovered that 

 an extremely big cow of the herd had scales under its belly. 

 When he had attached knives to its horns, the, cow conquered 

 the other dragon, which was wounded at the eye and retired 

 into its lake,^. The cow itself became the dragon of the Great 

 Lake. Down to the author's time those who passed this lake 

 avoided the character <^ (cow), and those who passed the 

 Sang-k'ii lake^ avoided the character |§ (blind of one or both 

 eyes) ; otherwise suddenly a storm burst forth and big waves arose. 



§ 6. Appearing as objects. 



With regard to objects which proved to be dragons we may 

 refer to the / yuen ^, where we read how a man while fishing 

 in a river found a shuttle and took it home. After a short wMle 

 the utensil, which he had hung on the wall, changed into a red 

 dragon and ascended to the sky amidst thunder and rain. 

 A dragon which had assumed the shape of a tree growing 

 under water is mentioned in the Shuh i hi'^. A woman who 

 touched this tree when going into the water in order to catch 

 some fish, became pregnant and gave birth to ten male children. 

 Afterwards^ when the dragon appeared in his real forna above 

 the water, nine of the boys ran away in fright, but the tenth 

 climbed upon his dragon-shaped father's neck and in later years 

 became the king of the land ^ The same work tells us about a 

 girl in the Palace, ' under the Hia dynasty, who changed into a 

 fearful dragon and then, reassuming her human form, became a 

 very beautiful woman, who devoured men *. 



In the Books of the Tsin dynasty-' an astrologer is said to have 

 discovered the vital spirits (7^) of two precious swords among 

 the stars, and pointed out the spot where they were buried. 



1 Ch. Ij p. 2. The same work gives a tale about a big piece of drift wood, which 

 brolie the vessel of a man who seized it, turned into a dragon and swam off. 



2 gft ,S =2 (see above, p. 72, note 1), Ch. ~K , p. 166. 



3 Cf. above, Book I, Ch. VI, p. 123. 



4 Ch. _[^ ; p. 4a. 



^ TCiI Jm nil VT if^ }ni Aw Thoaa Kwrnrrls: w/TiirTi fnrnprl mtn o mala anA a 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



