THE SII,K GODDESS OF CHINA. 23 



IV. 



Formation op the Legend op the Goddess Si-ling she 

 the Grand-mother of Thread. 



40. When Szema Tsien and his father compiled in the second century \S 

 B.C. the materials of the She hi, they came across documents giving to 

 the first wife of Hwang-ti the traditional name of Lul tsu $jfl jjjjj, 

 which they reproduced accordingly in their history", without any intima- 

 tion as to the possible meaning which could be inferred from the ideo- 

 graphical value of the symbols composing that written name. It seems 

 that previously the first symbol was simply written 1^ and that the addi- 

 ton of the determinative w o m a n was their own, 100 according to a prac- 

 tice then current to avoid misconceptions The simple symbol was phon- 

 etically employed as a proper name and its meaning was left vague and 

 undefined. Nothing is said by the Szemas as to the spinning and weav- 

 ing inventions attributed in after ages to Lui tsu and her lord. 



41 . But subsequently when rationalists began in the following centuries 

 to ponder over the shreds of record, saved from the remotest times, they 

 endeavoured to read behind the written words and to guess through the 

 ideographical meanings inherent to the characters of the writing, statements 

 hitherto hidden to view. The result was to see that the original mean- 

 ing of j^ lui, to bind was that of thread, and therefore that the name 

 of Lul $ jfl once deprived of the determinative of wo man its latest ad- 

 junct 101 , and combined with jjjj|, tsu, g r a n d-p aren t, was obviously 

 the depository of a tradition hitherto concealed from the gaze of former . 

 historians. The notion that the first wife of Hwang-ti was the grand- '' 

 mother-of-thread was thus revealed, and forms an interesting instance 

 of script-myth, a phenomenon which has not as yet received its share 

 of attention from the investigators of the history of culture among po- 

 pulations having a hieroglyphic or ideographic writing. This supposed in- 

 formation entailed the formation of a popular legend making the wife of 



