Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) (16 page)

One day when the cubs had grown husky, the tiger put them on her back and went out. Frantic, the woodsman howled to the heavens, “Save me, Your Majesty!” Within moments the tiger came back, folded her forelegs, and lowered her head before the woodsman. He climbed onto her back, and she vaulted the wall. There on the surface she set the woodsman down, took her cubs, and went on. He was left alone by a dark cliff in dense grasses, where there was no song of birds or any noise but the shrill wind blowing out of the dark wood. More frantic than ever, the woodsman called out, “Your Majesty!”

The tiger turned and regarded him. Kneeling, the woodsman pleaded, “It was Your Majesty’s kindness that kept me alive. But now we shall be lost to one another, for I fear I shall not escape wild beasts. To guarantee my safety, could you favor me with your escort to a main highway? I shall be in your debt to my dying day.”

The tiger nodded and preceded the woodsman to the main road. Then she turned around and stood staring at him. Again the woodsman expressed his thanks: “I’m a poor man of the west gate, and after I leave you, we’re not likely to meet again. But when I get home I’m going to raise a pig, and I will wait for you with the pig on a certain day at a certain time by the post station. Come and enjoy a feast. Don’t forget.”

The tiger nodded. The woodsman wept, and the tiger wept too. When the woodsman arrived home, his astonished family questioned him, and after he had told his story they rejoiced together. At the appointed time he prepared a pig and took great pains in butchering it. The tiger, however, arrived at the appointed place before the appointed hour. Unable to find the woodsman, she actually entered the west gate, where she was seen by the residents. They summoned some hunters, who closed the main gate and wings and gathered around the tiger, their spears at the ready, arrows to the bow. They agreed to capture her alive and present her to the local authorities.

The woodsman ran to the rescue, crying out to the crowd, “This tiger once kept me alive. I beg you all not to harm her!” But the hunters caught the tiger and took her to the government office. The woodsman went along, beating a drum and shouting. Angered, the officials questioned him, and he told them the whole story. They did not believe him.

“Let me prove it, then,” said the woodsman, “and I’ll suffer a beating if what I say is false.”

The woodsman put his arms around the tiger and said tearfully, “Your Majesty saved my life?” The tiger nodded. “Your Majesty entered the gate to keep our appointment?” The tiger nodded again. “I shall plead for your life; if I fail, I shall die with you.” As the woodsman spoke, the tiger’s tears fell to the ground. Of the many thousands who witnessed this, not one stood unmoved. The astounded officials hastened to free the tiger, then led her to the post station and threw her the promised pig. The tiger straightened her tail and made a feast of the pig. Afterwards she looked once at the woodsman and departed. Later this district was named after the trusty tiger.

— 
Wang Yu-ting

A woman of Chaoch’eng who was over seventy years old had an only son. One day he went into the mountains and was eaten by a tiger. The old woman grieved and grieved, ready to give up her life. Then with vociferous cries she complained to the local authorities.

“How can a tiger be subject to the law?” said the magistrate with a smile. This only aggravated the old woman’s tantrum, and when the magistrate scolded her she would not be intimidated. Because he felt sorry for her, he kept his own temper and even ended by agreeing to have the beast apprehended.

The old woman knelt down before him. She refused to leave until the warrant was actually issued, so the magistrate called for a volunteer on his staff to go and make the arrest. Li Neng, an agent who was drunk at the time, came forward and took the warrant, and the old woman left satisfied.

When Li Neng sobered up, he regretted his offer. Still, he assumed that the warrant was only a ruse to stop the old woman from creating a nuisance, so he turned it back in to the magistrate casually. But that official said angrily, “You gave your word you’d do it. How can I accept a change of mind?”

Cornered, the agent appealed for another warrant to deputize some hunters, and this the magistrate granted. Day and night Li Neng and his hunters now stalked the mountain hollows in hopes of catching a tiger. But more than a month passed without success,
and the agent was given a severe beating of one hundred strokes. Having nowhere to turn for redress, he presented himself at the shrine east of the town. There he called on his knees for the local deity, crying until he had no voice.

Soon a tiger came up. Li Neng was aghast, expecting to be eaten. But the tiger entered the shrine and, looking steadily at the agent, sat down on its haunches in the doorway. Li Neng called to the tiger as though it were a deity: “If it was you who killed the woman’s son, then you should submit to my arrest.” Then the agent took out a rope and tied it around the tiger’s neck. The tiger dropped his ears and accepted the rope, and the agent led the beast to the magistrate’s office. The magistrate asked the tiger, “That woman’s son—you ate him?” The tiger nodded.

“Those who take life must die,” continued the magistrate. “That law stands from oldest times. Besides, the poor woman had only one son. How do you suppose she’ll survive the years that remain to her? However, if you should be able to serve as her son, I shall spare you.” Again the tiger nodded. So they removed the ropes and sent the animal away, though the old woman was grieved that the magistrate did not make the tiger pay with its life.

When the morrow dawned, the old woman opened her gate to find a deer’s carcass, which she took and sold for her daily necessities. This became a custom, though sometimes the tiger would bring money or silk in his mouth and flip it into her yard. And so the woman became quite well-to-do—far better cared for than when her son was alive. She grew to feel deeply grateful for the tiger’s kindness. Eventually the tiger would come and lie under the eaves of her house the whole day, and the people and livestock no longer feared it.

After several years the old woman died, whereupon the tiger came and bellowed in the front hall. The woman had saved up enough for an ample burial service, and her kinsmen laid her to rest. When the mound over the tomb was completed, the tiger suddenly bounded up. The mourners fled, and the tiger went straight to the front of the tomb, roared thunderously for a long while, and then departed. Local people set up a shrine to the loyal tiger by the eastern outskirts of the township, where it remains to this day.

—
P’u Sung-ling

In recent years my village has had a number of tigers, and they have chewed up more people than you can count. Travelers through most of China, in fact, have been similarly plagued. Some say tigers are agents of the Highest in Heaven, helping chase down those who have escaped their appointed death by violence. Others say tigers are manifestations of fierce demons and vengeful spirits in a state of agitation and frustration. There may be some truth in both views, but nothing is quite so remarkable as the story about Old Man Huang.

Old Huang was from Mihsi, several miles from the town of Chiao. He had three fully grown sons. In the spring of the year, he sent them to plow his fields in the hills, and for several days they went out at sunup and returned home at dusk. One evening a neighbor said to him, “Your fields are overgrown with weeds.”

“How could that be?” replied Old Huang. “My boys plow it every day.”

“I’m afraid not,” answered the neighbor. Puzzled, the old man secretly followed his three sons when they went out next morning. He saw them enter the woods in the hills, remove their clothes, and hang them on a tree. Then they changed into tigers. Roaring and leaping, they emerged from the woods.

Old Huang was terrified. He ran home and confided what he had seen to his neighbor, then bolted his door and hid. The three came home that night and called at the gate for a long time, but no one answered. At last the neighbor came out and explained that their father would no longer know them as sons because of what he had seen in the hills.

“It’s true,” admitted the boys. “But we are not acting of our own free will. The Highest in Heaven compels us.” Then they cried to their father, “How could we fail to repay your boundless generosity? We feel helpless because you have long been destined for calamity. These past few days we have been ranging the hills in hopes of finding someone who could take your place. And even now, after you’ve discovered us, we can’t disobey our orders. In the collar of my clothes is a small booklet. Kindly get it for me, Father, otherwise you’re surely done for, and we three will be responsible for your death.”

Old Huang took a lantern and searched in the collar, where he found the little booklet. It was filled with the names of those in Chiao who were to be killed by tigers. His own name was second from the top. “What can be done?” the old man asked.

“Just open the gate,” said the boys. “We’ve thought of something.” Old Huang did so. The boys took the booklet and, weeping, bowed to him. Then they said, “This is all according to the decree of the Highest in Heaven. Now put on several layers of clothes, but don’t fasten the belt. Stick yellow paper on top, and pray fervently on your knees. We have our own way of rescuing you.”

Old Huang did as he was told. His three sons leaped over him from behind, each tiger catching a layer of clothes in its mouth. Then they dashed off with a great roar and never returned, and the old man is alive to this day.

From ancient times there have been many cases of men turning into tigers. Without fail, their hides and their faces were transformed. But it is unheard-of for tigers to remain among men as these three boys did. Moreover, once the Highest in Heaven had assigned them to kill men while at the same time putting their own father’s name on the list, the sons were in a most difficult position. And if they failed to find a substitute for their father, they did preserve his life with great ingenuity. It may be said that theirs was a change of form, not of heart.

The world is full of those who appear human and yet fail to recognize the king or the father standing in front of them. What, then, of those who have become tigers and yet remain grateful for the kindness they have enjoyed? How the Highest could let the boys’ own father be on their list of victims is beyond me.

—
Hsü Fang