Black Arts

This tale begins with an outsider crossing from the Middle Kingdom into the south-western hills to marry into a family with dangerous magical powers. Its source generalizes that danger to the people of a border region, reflecting the narrator’s suspicion of outsiders rather than a fact about any real community.

A young man from a poor family once agreed to work three years for one of these hill people to earn his daughter’s hand. When the three years were up, the wedding was held and the couple were given a small house. As soon as they were alone, the bride warned her husband to watch himself, because her parents disliked him and meant him harm. Following custom, she went into the house ahead of him carrying a lantern—but when he stepped in after her, she was gone. It was the same every day: she was with him in daylight and vanished when night fell.

Soon after the wedding she told him, “Tomorrow is my mother’s birthday, and you must go and wish her well. They will give you tea and food. Drink the tea, but do not eat a bite. Remember that!”

Her parents welcomed them warmly and set out tea and sweets. The young man drank but would not eat, though they kept pressing him with smiles and kind words. At last he decided they could not really wish him harm, and since there were freshly caught eels and crabs on the plate in front of him, he took a little. His wife shot him a look of reproach, and he made an excuse to leave.

“But it is my birthday,” said his mother-in-law. “You must taste my birthday noodles!” She set down a huge bowl of noodles that shone like silver threads, mixed with rich meat and scented mushrooms. He had never seen anything so tempting in that country. He picked up his chopsticks. His wife looked at him; he pretended not to see. She coughed; he pretended not to hear. Finally she stepped on his foot under the table, and he came to his senses with the bowl not yet half empty. “I have had plenty,” he said, and they left.

“Now it is serious,” his wife said. “You did not listen, and you will die.” He did not believe her—until terrible pains seized him and he fell senseless. She used a frightening magical treatment involving suspension, heat and a jar of oil and water. A wriggling mass of worms, centipedes, toads and tadpoles poured from his mouth into the jar. She put him to bed and gave him wine containing realgar; within the tale, he recovered. These actions are fantasy, not safe treatment.

“Those eels and crabs were toads and tadpoles,” she told him, “and the birthday noodles were worms and centipedes. Be careful. My parents know you are still alive, and they will try something else.”

Sure enough, a few days later his father-in-law said, “On the cliff above the cave grows a great tree with a phoenix nest in it. You are young and can climb. Go and bring me the eggs.”

The young man told his wife. “Tie long bamboo poles together and fix a curved sword at the top,” she said. “Take these nine loaves and these hens’ eggs—seven times seven of them—in a basket. Do not climb the tree. Chop it down with the sword, drop the poles, and run for your life. If a monster comes after you, throw it the loaves, three at a time, and at the end pour out the eggs and race home.”

He followed her instructions exactly. The nest was as big as a round pavilion. He hacked at the tree with all his might, threw down the poles, and ran without looking back. Then a roar like a thunderstorm rose over him. Looking up, he saw a dragon many fathoms long, eyes blazing like lamps, fire spurting from its jaws, feeling along the ground with two long feelers. He flung loaves into the air. The dragon caught them and stopped to eat, then came after him again, and again he threw bread. When the loaves were gone he tipped out the basket. The eggs rolled in every direction, and while the hungry dragon came down to suck them up one by one, he escaped home.

Sobbing, he knelt before his wife. “I barely got away from that dragon’s belly. If this goes on, I am sure to die. Please save me!”

“Where is your home?” she asked.

“About a hundred miles away, in the Middle Kingdom. My old mother still lives there. My only worry is that we are so poor.”

“Then I will run away with you to your mother,” she said. “Do not fret about being poor.” She gathered all the pearls and precious stones in the house into a bag and had him tie it around his waist. She gave him an umbrella, too. In the middle of the night they climbed the wall with a ladder. “Carry the umbrella on your back and run as fast as you can,” she told him. “Do not open it, and do not look back. I will follow you secretly.”

He ran north for a day and a night, nearly a hundred miles, until he had left the hill people’s land behind and his legs were failing. At a mountain village he sat by the gate to eat and looked around for his wife, but she was nowhere. “Maybe she has tricked me after all,” he thought. He drank from a spring and limped on. In the hottest part of the day a sudden mountain downpour began, and without thinking he opened the umbrella—and out tumbled his wife onto the ground.

“Once again you did not listen,” she said. “Now the harm is done.” She sent him to the village to buy a white rooster, seven black teacups, and half a length of red nettle cloth, telling him not to be stingy with his silver. When he came back she tore the cloth and made herself a coat of it.

They had gone only a few miles when a red cloud came speeding up out of the south like a bird. “That is my mother,” the woman said. When it was overhead she hurled the black teacups at it. All seven fell back to earth, and from inside the cloud came weeping and scolding. Then it vanished.

About four hours later they heard a sound like silk ripping and saw a cloud black as ink racing against the wind. “Alas, that is my father,” she said. “This is life or death—he will not let us go. For love of you, I must break the holiest law.” She seized the white rooster, cut off its head, and threw the head into the air. The black cloud melted away at once, and her father’s body, its head cut off, dropped beside the road. The woman wept bitterly, and when she had cried her fill, they buried him.

Then they went on to the young man’s home, where his old mother was still alive. They opened the bag of pearls and jewels, bought good land, built a fine house, and became rich and respected in their village.

Where this tale comes from

“Black Arts” is the last of the ghost stories in Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921). It describes the south-western hill people from the point of view of the old Chinese tellers, as strangers feared for their magic, and this page keeps that framing as a feature of the source rather than a fact about any real people.

Wilhelm’s short note reports a historical belief that realgar is an antidote and tonic. Realgar is an arsenic compound, and serious poisoning has been documented; the tale must not be used as a treatment guide. See the published case report on realgar poisoning. The wife’s magic—teacups against her mother’s red cloud, the white rooster against her father’s black one—follows its own strict rules, and the husband keeps getting into trouble whenever he ignores them.

Read the original: The Chinese Fairy Book (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: older readers. Includes poisoning, an alarming pseudo-treatment, animal killing and a daughter killing her father while escaping his pursuit. The borderland stereotypes and magical cures are features of an old tale, not factual guidance.

Reading the story closely

The wife belongs to the same family and region the opening teaches the husband to fear, yet she supplies every rescue. That contradiction is a reason to question the source’s sweeping view of outsiders. Her knowledge is practical within the magic: she distinguishes disguised food from food, a supposed phoenix from a dragon, and an umbrella from a hiding place.

Follow the umbrella through instruction, doubt, accidental opening and renewed pursuit. The husband lacks the explanation for its rule, while the wife carries both the rescue work and the grief of its consequences. Compare their final wealth with her roadside mourning: a prosperous ending does not erase what escape has cost her.

Think about it

• Each time the husband ignores his wife’s warning, something goes wrong. Can you list the times?
• How does the wife help him escape the dragon at the phoenix tree?
• Why is the wife so sad after the black cloud disappears?

More stories like this

• The Kindly Magician — more Chinese sorcery and narrow escapes
• The Flying Ogre — a short, eerie Chinese ghost story
• The Frog Princess — a young man who marries the daughter of the Frog King