The Disowned Princess

In the days of the Tang dynasty there lived a man named Liu I who failed his examinations for the doctorate and set off for home. He had gone six or seven miles when a bird flew up from a field, and his frightened horse bolted for ten miles before he could rein it in. There he saw a woman herding sheep on a hillside. She was lovely, but her face showed signs of secret grief, and Liu I, surprised, asked what was wrong.

The woman began to sob. “Luck has deserted me, and I am poor and ashamed,” she said. “Since you are kind enough to ask, I will tell you everything. I am the youngest daughter of the Dragon-King of the Sea of Dungting. I was married to the second son of the Dragon-King of Ging Dschou, but my husband mistreated me and cast me off. I complained to his parents, but they doted on their son and did nothing, and when I pressed them they grew angry and sent me out here to herd sheep.” She wept uncontrollably. Then she went on: “The Sea of Dungting is far away, but I know your road home passes it. I would like to give you a letter for my father, but I do not know if you would carry it.”

“Your story has touched my heart,” said Liu I. “I wish I had wings to fly away with you. I will gladly deliver your letter. But the Sea of Dungting is long and wide—how will I find your father?”

“On the southern shore stands an orange tree that people call the tree of sacrifice,” she answered. “Untie your sash and strike the tree with it three times. Someone will appear; follow him. When you see my father, tell him the misery you found me in and how much I long for his help.” She drew a letter from the folds of her robe and gave it to him. Then she bowed, gazed toward the east, and sighed, and to his own surprise tears ran down Liu I’s cheeks too. He tucked the letter into his bag.

“I don’t understand why you must herd sheep,” he said. “Do the gods slaughter cattle as people do?”

“These are not ordinary sheep,” she said. “They are rain-sheep—the thunder-rams.” Looking closer, he saw that the animals strutted about in a proud, fierce way, unlike any ordinary flock.

“If I deliver your letter and you get safely home to the Sea of Dungting,” Liu I added, “you must not treat me as a stranger.”

“How could I?” she replied. “You will be my dearest friend.” With that they parted.

Within a month Liu I reached the Sea of Dungting, asked for the orange tree, and found it. He untied his sash and struck the tree three times. At once a warrior rose from the waves. “Where have you come from, honored guest?”

“I have an important errand and must see the King,” said Liu I.

The warrior waved toward the water, and the waves became a solid road. Along it he led Liu I to the dragon-castle with its thousand gates, where magic flowers and rare grasses grew thickly, and told him to wait beside a great hall called the Hall of the Spirits. Every jewel on earth seemed gathered there. The pillars were white quartz inlaid with green jade, the seats were coral, the curtains were rock crystal clear as water, and the windows were polished glass in rich latticework. Amber-trimmed beams arched overhead, a strange perfume filled the air, and the far corners of the hall faded into darkness.

Liu I waited a long time. Whenever he asked, the warrior said, “Our master is up in the coral tower discussing the sacred book of fire with the priest of the sun. He will be finished soon.”

“Why does he care about the book of fire?” asked Liu I.

“Our master is a dragon,” came the answer. “Dragons draw their power from water and can flood hill and valley with a single wave. The priest is human, and humans draw their power from fire; with one torch they can burn the greatest palace. Fire and water are opposites and fight each other, so our master is talking with the priest to find a way for them to complete each other.”

Before he had finished, a man in a purple robe appeared, carrying a jade scepter. “This is my master,” said the warrior, and Liu I bowed.

“Aren’t you a living man?” asked the King. “What brings you here?”

Liu I gave his name. “I went to the capital and failed my examination,” he said. “Passing by the Ging Dschou River, I saw your beloved daughter herding sheep in the wilderness, her hair tossed by the wind and her clothes soaked by the rain. I could not bear her suffering and spoke to her. She wept and told me her husband had cast her out, and she gave me this letter for you.” He handed it over.

When the King had read it, he hid his face in his sleeve and sighed. “It is my own fault. I chose a worthless husband for her, and instead of making her happy I have brought her to disgrace in a distant land. You are a stranger, yet you were willing to help her, and I am deeply grateful.” He wept, and everyone around him wept too. He sent the letter into the inner palace, and soon loud wailing rose from the rooms within.

The King grew alarmed. “Tell them not to cry so loudly,” he ordered an official. “I am afraid Tsian Tang will hear.”

“Who is Tsian Tang?” asked Liu I.

“My dear brother,” said the King. “He used to rule the Tsian-Tang River, but he has been removed. He is so wild and uncontrollable that I fear he will do terrible damage. The flood that covered the earth for nine years in the time of Emperor Yau came from his anger: he quarrelled with one of the kings of heaven and raised a flood over the tops of five high mountains. The king of heaven, angry with him, handed him over to me, and I had to chain him to a pillar in my palace.”

Before he had finished speaking, a tremendous uproar split the sky and shook the earth. The whole palace rocked, and smoke and clouds rose hissing. Up surged a red dragon a thousand feet long, with flashing eyes, a blood-red tongue, scarlet scales, and a fiery beard, dragging the pillar and its chain through the air. Thunder and lightning roared around him, and sleet, snow, rain, and hail whirled about. With a crash of thunder he soared into the sky and was gone.

Liu I fell to the ground in terror. The King helped him up with his own hand. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “That is my brother, rushing off to Ging Dschou in a rage. We shall soon have good news.”

He ordered food and wine for his guest. After the cup had gone around three times, a soft breeze stirred and a fine rain fell. In came a manly, heroic youth in a purple gown and a tall hat, with a sword at his side. Behind him walked a radiantly beautiful girl in a robe of misty fragrance—the very dragon-princess Liu I had met on the road. A crowd of laughing maidens in rose-colored dresses led her into the inner palace. The King introduced the youth: “This is my brother, Tsian Tang.”

Tsian Tang thanked Liu I for bringing the message. Then he told his brother, “I fought those accursed dragons and crushed them.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Six hundred thousand.”

“Were any fields damaged?”

“For eight hundred miles around.”

“And the heartless husband?”

“I ate him alive!”

The King was dismayed. “What that faithless boy did was unbearable, it’s true,” he said, “but you were a little too rough. Never do anything like that in future.” And Tsian Tang promised.

That evening a great feast was held for Liu I. A thousand warriors with banners and spears danced a war-dance to blaring trumpets and thundering drums, acting out how Tsian Tang had broken through the enemy, until the guest’s hair stood on end. Then came strings, flutes, and little golden bells, and a thousand maidens in crimson and green silk danced to music telling of the princess’s return, so sad and longing that all who heard it wept. The King, full of joy, toasted his guest, and all sorrow left them. Both brothers thanked Liu I in verse, and he answered with a rhymed toast while the courtiers applauded. The King gave him a blue cloud-casket holding a rhinoceros horn that parts the waters, and Tsian Tang gave him a carbuncle on a platter of red amber. The rest of the palace heaped embroideries, brocades, and pearls beside him, until he sat smiling amid the shimmer, bowing his thanks on every side. That night he slept in the Palace of Frozen Radiance.

At the next day’s banquet, Tsian Tang, a little the worse for wine, lounged in his seat and said carelessly: “The Princess of the Dungting Sea is beautiful and graceful. She had the bad luck to be cast off by her husband, and today her marriage is ended. I would like to find her a new husband. If you agree, it will be to your benefit. If not, go your way, and should we meet again, we will not know each other.”

Liu I was angered by his offhand tone. Flushing, he replied, “I carried the letter because I pitied the princess, not to gain anything for myself. To kill a husband and carry off his wife is not what an honest man does. I am only an ordinary man, but I would rather die than do as you say.”

Tsian Tang stood up and apologized. “I spoke too hastily. I hope you will not hold it against me.” The King also spoke kindly to Liu I and scolded his brother for his rudeness, and nothing more was said about marriage.

The following day Liu I took his leave, and the Queen of the Dungting Sea held a farewell banquet for him. “My daughter owes you a great debt, and we have had no chance to repay it,” she said tearfully. “We are sad to see you go.” She told the princess to thank him. Blushing, the princess bowed and said, “We will probably never meet again,” and then tears choked her voice. Liu I had resisted her uncle’s stormy demands, but seeing her before him in all her loveliness, he felt a pang of sadness. Still, he mastered himself and departed with treasures beyond counting, and the King and his brother escorted him all the way to the river.

Back home, Liu I sold no more than a hundredth of his gifts and was already worth millions, richer than all his neighbors. He decided to marry and heard of a widow in the North living in poverty with her daughter. The girl’s father had become a Taoist late in life and vanished into the clouds, never to return; the mother was looking for a distinguished husband for her daughter, who was beautiful beyond words. Liu I agreed to marry her, and on the wedding night, when he saw his bride unveiled, she looked exactly like the dragon-princess. He asked her about it, but she only smiled and said nothing.

In time heaven sent them a son. Then she told her husband, “Today I will confess: I truly am the Princess of the Dungting Sea. After you refused my uncle and went away, I fell sick with longing and nearly died. My parents wanted to send for you, but feared you might object to my family. So I married you in the shape of a human girl. I did not dare tell you until now, but since heaven has given us a son, I hope you will love his mother too.”

Liu I felt as if he had woken from a deep sleep, and from then on the two loved each other dearly. One day his wife said, “If you want to stay with me forever, we cannot go on living in the world of men. We dragons live ten thousand years, and you shall share our long life. Come back with me to the Sea of Dungting!”

Ten years went by, and no one knew where Liu I had gone. Then a cousin of his happened to sail across the Sea of Dungting, and suddenly a blue mountain rose out of the water. “There is no mountain here!” cried the sailors in alarm. “It must be a water-demon!” As they pointed and talked, the mountain came close to the ship, and a brightly painted boat slid down from its peak into the water. In it sat Liu I, with fairies standing on either side. He beckoned to his cousin, who gathered up his robes and stepped aboard. The moment he did, the boat became a mountain crowned with a splendid castle, and in the castle stood Liu I, surrounded by radiance and the sound of stringed instruments.

They greeted each other, and Liu I said, “We have been apart only a moment, and your hair is already gray!”

“You are a god and blessed,” his cousin replied. “I have only a mortal body. That is how fate has arranged it.”

Liu I gave him fifty pills. “Each pill adds a year to your life,” he said. “When those years are used up, come to me, and live no longer in the dusty world of toil and trouble.” Then he carried his cousin back across the sea and vanished. The cousin withdrew from the world, and fifty years later, when he had taken the last pill, he disappeared and was never seen again.

Where this tale comes from

“The Disowned Princess” appears among the nature and animal tales of The Chinese Fairy Book, Richard Wilhelm’s collection as rendered into English by Frederick H. Martens and issued by Frederick A. Stokes in New York in 1921. The story opens in the Tang dynasty.

Wilhelm’s note explains that the princess is shown “herding sheep” because in Chinese the word for sheep is often an image for clouds, and that Tsian Tang is a place name used for the god of that place. He identifies the deluge with the flood that the great Yu regulated as minister of Emperor Yau, here exaggerated into a world flood.

Read the original: Read The Disowned Princess free at Project Gutenberg

For older readers: domestic abuse, an uncle’s account of mass killing and destruction, an implied marriage threat, and a bride who conceals her identity. The romance does not make those choices harmless.

Reading the story closely

The rescue has two sharply different methods. Liu I listens and carries the princess’s own letter; Tsian Tang kills her husband and reports enormous losses of life and farmland. Her father accepts responsibility for the marriage but barely restrains his brother. Compare the scale of that damage with the mild phrase ‘a little too rough’: the court’s celebration leaves the victims of the rescue outside its attention.

Marriage then raises the problem of choice again. Liu I refuses the uncle’s pressure and rejects the appearance of profiting from a killing, yet the princess later marries him without revealing her identity until after their son is born. List what each partner knows at the wedding and at the confession. The happy ending settles their relationship within the tale; it does not erase the unequal information that made the wedding possible.

Questions to ask

• Why does Liu I refuse Tsian Tang’s offer of marriage, even though he likes the princess?
• How does the princess finally find a way to marry Liu I?
• Why does Liu I’s cousin find that his hair has turned gray when Liu I has not changed?

You may also like

• Rose of Evening — another journey to an underwater dragon court
• The Dragon After His Winter Sleep — a scholar shows respect to a tiny dragon
• The Favorite of Fortune and the Child of Ill Luck — a faithful wife and a long-awaited reunion