Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, Vol. 1

beam, a fit laughing-stock for devils. When Liu Chüan, Governor of Wu-ling, determined to relieve his poverty by trade, he saw a devil standing by his side, laughing and rubbing his hands with glee. “Poverty and wealth are matters of destiny,” said Liu Chüan; “But to be laughed at by a devil—,” and accordingly he desisted from his intention. For my talents are not those of Yü Pao, A writer who flourished in the early part of the fourth century, and composed a work in thirty books entitled Supernatural Researches. elegant explorer of the records of the gods; I am rather animated by the spirit of Su Tung-p'o, The famous poet, statesman, and essayist, who flourished A.D. 1036–1101. who loved to hear men speak of the supernatural. I get people to commit what they tell me to writing, and subsequently I dress it up in the form of a story; and thus in the lapse of time my friends from all quarters have supplied me with quantities of material, which, from my habit of collecting, has grown into a vast pile. “And his friends had the habit of jotting down for his unfailing delight anything quaint or comic that they came across.”—The World on Charles Dickens, 24th July 1878.

Human beings, I would point out, are not beyond the pale of fixed laws, and yet there are more remarkable phenomena in their midst than in the country of those who crop their hair; It is related in the Historical Record that when T’ai Po and Yü Chung visited the southern savages they saw men with tattooed bodies and short hair. antiquity is unrolled before us, and many tales are to be found therein stranger than that of the nation of Flying Heads. A fabulous community placed by geographers to the west of the Dragon City. So called because the heads of the men leave their bodies and fly down to marshy places to feed on worms and crabs. A red ring is seen the night before the flight encircling the neck of the man whose head is about to fly. At daylight the head returns.