Sam-Chung and the Water Demon

Macgowan introduces Sam-Chung as a celebrated pilgrim seeking release from death. This is the collection’s literary portrayal, not a verified biography or a general account of Buddhist teaching. What troubled him most was the suffering of humankind, and above all the death that waits at the end of every life. Death entered every home. It took wise teachers who had lifted up whole generations, it took wicked men in their turn, and it even took little children who had never broken any law of Heaven. Wicked men often seemed to outlive the good, yet they too were swept away without ceremony whenever the gods chose. Many little ones who had barely begun to live were driven out into the Land of Shadows by this mysterious power that rules over every human life. Sam-Chung longed to be free of its shadow, so that it would never darken the years ahead of him.

Through careful inquiry, and through friendly hints from men he believed were fairies in disguise, sent by the Goddess of Mercy to help those who reached for a higher life, he came to believe that death could lose its power over anyone who pursued goodness steadily enough. Anyone, man or woman, could win this precious gift of eternal life by paying its price: great self-denial, a willingness to suffer, and most of all a deep compassion for everyone in sorrow, for what the gods demanded above everything from those who hoped to join them was a divine pity and the will to rescue suffering people. Without that compassion, the gods said, no sacrifice counted for anything.

Sam-Chung knew the gods favored him, because the Goddess of Mercy had given him two attendants with supernatural powers, Chiau and Chu, to protect him from the cunning evil spirits who are always plotting to block and destroy those whose hearts are set on higher things. With them he set out for the great Tien-ho River, which every pilgrim bound for the land of the Immortals hopes to cross. For many weeks they toiled over high mountains, through shadowed valleys, and across burning deserts where travellers died of thirst.

At last, weary and footsore, they reached the shore of the Tien-ho just as the sun went down. The sunset lit the water so beautifully that it seemed more than earthly. The river was so wide it looked like an inland sea, with no land in sight on the far horizon. But to their great disappointment there were no boats anywhere. They had meant to hire one and cross during the night, hurrying on their way while resting from the hardships of the long land journey. Now they had to wonder where to spend the night. There was the sandy beach they were walking along, and the broad river where the evening mist was slowly gathering, but no sign of a house or any living soul.

While they wondered what to do, faint music drifted to them on the air. They followed it to the top of a rise and saw a village on the hillside, with a small temple right at the river’s edge. Overjoyed at the hope of shelter, they hurried down to the hamlet. As they came closer the music grew louder, and they guessed that some festival or happy gathering had put the people in a holiday mood. It came from the finest, best-built house in the village, where a crowd of guests stood about the door after a feast. A dignified old man came out, welcomed the strangers, and invited them to stay as long as they liked. “Come in and eat,” he said. “The tables are still full from today’s feast.”

After the meal the travellers noticed that, for all his kindness, their host seemed distracted and heavy-hearted. They were delighted with his courtesy and his hearty hospitality, but he looked as though some painful thought weighed on his heart. “May I ask what you were celebrating?” said Sam-Chung. “No festival in the calendar falls today.”

“We were celebrating nothing,” the old man said gravely. “It was a funeral for two of my grandchildren. They are still alive, but within hours they will be gone.” “But how can such a service be held for people who are still living?” asked Sam-Chung in wonder. “When I have explained, you will no longer be surprised,” the old man replied. He explained that the region was held in fear by a cruel Demon whose temple stood by the river. Every year at this season it demanded that a boy and a girl be brought to its temple by the river to be eaten. Those who resisted had only suffered worse, so the people gave up their children, though many hearts broke. “Is there any way to know when the sacrifice will be demanded?” asked Sam-Chung. “Oh yes,” said the old man. The families took their turns one after another, and a few days before each sacrifice, the Demon itself appeared in the home to give its command. Two days earlier it had ordered his grandchildren brought at daybreak tomorrow. The family had held the rites so that the children’s spirits would not stay in the Demon’s power, but might one day be born again into happier lives.

“What does the Demon look like?” asked Sam-Chung. “No one here has seen its form,” the old man said. It had no body anyone could see. Its coming was marked by a strong gust of wind with a strange smell, and a force so powerful that people bowed their heads without meaning to. “One more question,” said Sam-Chung. “Where did this Demon come from, and how has it gained such power that it seems to defy Heaven itself and all the kindly gods who work to save mankind?” Once, the old man answered, it had lived in the Western Heaven under the Goddess of Mercy, but it had been wicked from the start, and at the first chance it escaped to the caves deep beneath the Tien-ho, where other evil spirits joined it.

Sam-Chung’s compassion for all living things was so great that his name was known even among the Immortals, and now he burned with anger at the thought of innocent children being sacrificed. Chiau and Chu felt the same. They talked over how to save the children and end the Demon’s rule for good. At last Chiau, the bolder of the two, declared, “I will take the boy’s place and Chu the girl’s, and together we will fight the Demon and kill it.” He asked the old man to bring in the children so they could plan carefully.

The grandfather led them in: a boy of seven and his sister, a year older, with her hair carefully arranged for the ceremony. Both clung nervously to the old man. “Keep your eyes on me,” Chiau told the boy, “and you, little sister, watch the man next to me, and you will see something to make you laugh.” As the children stared, the two men shrank smaller and smaller until they were the exact size and likeness of the children, down to every detail of face and clothing.

“Now hide the children in the most out-of-the-way room in the house,” Chiau told the old man. “Let no one outside this room see them, in case word reaches the Demon. From this moment we are your grandchildren.”

At the first glow of dawn two sedan chairs arrived to carry the victims away. A few frightened neighbors peered through the gloom for a last look, never guessing the truth. As soon as the children were set inside the dim temple, lit only by a single rushlight, the doors banged shut and the bearers fled for their lives.

A huge, hideous shape came out of an inner room toward the children. The Demon was surprised that, unlike every child before them, these two neither cried nor trembled, but waited calmly. It paused, and its fiery eyes blazed as the little figures grew and grew until they were as mighty as itself. Knowing it had been tricked and must fight for its life, the Demon drew its trusted sword and charged.

Chiau and Chu were ready, strengthened by the justice of their cause. A furious battle filled the shadowy temple with the clash of weapons, unearthly noises, and groans like those of a lost soul. The Demon was badly wounded again and again, though its magic healed each wound at once. At last, after one more great lunge with its broadsword, its cowardly heart failed. With a cry of despair it fled from the temple and plunged headlong into the river.

When Chiau and Chu reported their victory, the whole village rejoiced. People gathered in doorways and at the corners of narrow lanes to congratulate one another. Free of their fear, the men rushed down to the temple together, and within a few hours every trace of it had vanished beneath the water into which the Demon had dived.

Meanwhile, in its grotto under the river, the defeated Demon called a council of the other demons to win back its power and punish Sam-Chung. “We must capture him,” said a wicked-looking imp who always acted as their adviser. “I have heard that eating some of his flesh will lengthen one’s life by more than a thousand years.” They all agreed, and laid their plans.

The next morning a violent snowstorm hid river, hills, and sky. The cold grew so fierce that the Tien-ho, which had never frozen in memory, turned into a highway of ice. No one suspected that demons had done it. When the storm passed, Sam-Chung and his companions were astonished to see what looked like merchants with laden mules testing the ice and then setting out across it. The villagers warned of every kind of danger, but Sam-Chung was eager to continue his journey and saw no other way, so he hurried after the merchants. He would not have been so eager had he known that every one of them was a demon in human shape.

Five or six miles out, the bitter cold suddenly ended and a warm south wind began to blow. The ice softened, water trickled into pools, and loud cracks sounded on every side. Clever Chiau grew alarmed, all the more because the merchants had disappeared from view, and he stayed on guard. A mile farther the ice thinned, and before they could turn back it broke beneath them, plunging all three into the river.

The instant his feet touched the water, Chiau sprang into the air and flew at tremendous speed toward the Western Heaven to beg the Goddess of Mercy for help. The waiting demons swept Sam-Chung and Chu down to their cave at the bottom of the river. Chu was an immortal and the Goddess’s own messenger, so they could not harm him; they could only lock him in an inner grotto under guard. But Sam-Chung was to die, for the Demon meant to eat him the next day, both for revenge and to add a thousand years to its life. It had forgotten that Sam-Chung was a special favorite of the Goddess.

In the night there was a tremendous commotion. The river’s waters fled in all directions as if before a hurricane, and the caves blazed with a light so brilliant that the demons were blinded. Screaming, they scattered—all except the cruel Demon, which some unseen power held fast where it stood.

Then the noble figure of the Goddess of Mercy appeared, surrounded by a shining company of fairies. First she freed Sam-Chung, who lay bound and only hours from death, and she gave him and his two companions into the care of her chosen followers, who carried them swiftly across the river. At her command, the cowering Demon vanished as if in a flash of lightning, taken away to a dungeon where those who persist in hating mankind are kept until some noble feeling of compassion changes their hearts and the Goddess judges them fit to be free.

The lights died away and the fairy voices fell silent. The river, released from its divine spell, flowed back into its course, and the Goddess and her glorious company went home to the far-off Western Heaven.

About this tale

This is the tenth chapter of the Rev. J. Macgowan’s Chinese Folk-Lore Tales, published in London by Macmillan in 1910. Macgowan introduces Sam-Chung as a Buddhist seeker of eternal life who is protected by two attendants, Chiau and Chu, sent by the Goddess of Mercy.

The book’s second chapter, “Kwang-Jui and the God of the River,” follows a young priest with a similar name, Sam-Choang, but Macgowan does not state that the two are the same man. In this chapter the goal of his pilgrimage is to cross the Tien-ho River on the way to the land of the Immortals.

Read the original: Macgowan’s Chinese Folk-Lore Tales on Project Gutenberg

Best for ages 9–12 with adult discussion: children threatened with sacrifice, combat, an ice trap, captivity and threats of cannibalism. The children are rescued; the demon’s final removal leaves open the possibility of change.

Reading the story closely

The apparent celebration is a funeral for living children, so hospitality and grief occupy the same room. Sam-Chung notices his host’s distress instead of assuming that music means happiness. Later he makes the opposite error at the river: the apparent merchants seem to confirm that crossing is safe, and eagerness outweighs the villagers’ warnings.

Compare the two disguises. Chiau and Chu become children to protect the intended victims; the demons become merchants to lure the rescuers into danger. Identify what each audience sees and what information it lacks. Finally compare the companions’ first plan to kill the demon with the Goddess’s decision to confine it until compassion changes it. The rescue ends the immediate threat without treating punishment and reform as identical.

Think about it

• According to the tale, what quality do the gods want most from anyone who seeks eternal life?
• How do Chiau and Chu fool the Demon at the temple?
• What clues warn Chiau that the merchants on the ice are not what they seem?

More stories like this

• Kwang-Jui and the God of the River — a young priest named Sam-Choang helps bring his father’s murderer to justice
• How the River God’s Wedding Was Broken Off — another cruel river cult ended by a brave official
• The Fairy Bonze — another Macgowan tale of help from the fairy world