Laotsze

In this legend, Laotsze is older than heaven and earth put together. He is the Yellow Lord, or Yellow Ancient, who made this world with the other four Ancients. He has come to earth many times under many different names. His most famous visit was as Laotsze, “the Old Child,” a name he was given because he was born with white hair. He learned all sorts of magic that made his life very long.

Once Laotsze hired a servant and promised him a hundred copper coins a day. But he never paid him, and in the end he owed the man seven million two hundred thousand coins.

Then Laotsze climbed onto a black ox and rode off toward the West, and he wanted his servant to come too. But when they reached the Han-Gu Pass, the servant would go no farther. He demanded his wages. Laotsze gave him nothing.

When they came to the house of the guardian of the pass, red clouds appeared in the sky. The guardian understood the sign: a holy man was coming. He went out to greet Laotsze and brought him into his home. He asked him about secret wisdom, but Laotsze only stuck out his tongue and said not a word. Even so, the guardian treated him with the greatest respect.

Meanwhile, Laotsze’s servant told the guardian’s servant that his master owed him a fortune and asked him to put in a good word. When the guardian’s servant heard how huge the sum was, he thought, “What a rich son-in-law this man would make!” and married his daughter to him.

At last the guardian heard about all this and came to Laotsze with the servant. Laotsze said to the man, “You rascal! You should have died long ago. When I hired you I was poor and had no money, so I gave you a magic charm to swallow that keeps you alive. That is the only reason you are still living. I told you, ‘Follow me into the West, the land of Blessed Rest, and I will pay you in yellow gold.’ But you refused.”

And he patted the servant on the neck. The servant’s mouth opened, and out came the life-giving charm, its magic signs still bright and fresh in red cinnabar ink. At that very moment the servant fell down and turned into a pile of dry bones.

The guardian of the pass threw himself on the ground and begged for the servant’s life. He promised to pay the wages himself if Laotsze would bring the man back. So Laotsze laid the charm among the bones, and the servant sat up, breathing and whole. The guardian paid him what he was owed and sent him on his way.

Then the guardian bowed to Laotsze as his master. Laotsze taught him the secret of everlasting life and left him his teachings in five thousand words, which the guardian wrote down. That is this legend’s account of the book called the Tao Teh King, translated in this edition as “The Book of the Way and Life.”

After that, Laotsze vanished from human sight. The guardian of the pass followed his teachings and was given a place among the immortals.

About this tale

This legend comes from the tales of saints and magicians in Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, in Frederick H. Martens’s English (Stokes, 1921). It is short in the original too, and this page tells all of it. It connects to Wilhelm’s creation legend, “How the Five Ancients Became Men,” where Laotsze is named as the Yellow Ancient.

Wilhelm’s historical note reports a tradition placing Laotsze’s western journey before the Buddha’s birth and identifying the Buddha as his reincarnation. This is a tradition reported by the editor, not a biography or a statement of all Daoists’ beliefs. The guardian of the Han-Gu Pass, he adds, is named Guan Yin Hi in the Taoist books of Lia Dsi and Dschuang Dsi.

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

Best for older readers with an adult — a servant seeking unpaid wages is reduced to bones, then magically revived; discuss the unequal power in this encounter.

Reading the story closely

The servant’s enormous unpaid balance places ordinary obligations beside supernatural time. Laotsze says the life-giving charm has already benefited him, but it was not the promised daily payment. The guardian resolves the conflict by both pleading for the servant and paying the debt himself.

Compare what each person gives or owes: labor, wages, extended life, rescue and teaching. Which exchanges are agreed beforehand, and which are imposed afterward? The story honors Laotsze’s power, but readers can still question using control over someone’s life to answer a request for earned pay.

Questions to ask

• Why is Laotsze called “the Old Child”?
• What sign tells the guardian that a holy man is coming?
• What keeps the servant alive, and what happens when it comes out?

You may also like

• How the Five Ancients Became Men — where the Yellow Ancient helps make the world
• Dschang Liang — a strategist who ends up wandering with Laotsze
• The Halos of the Saints — more Wilhelm lore about holy people