The Halos of the Saints

In this legend, the great gods carry halos of light around their heads. Whenever lesser gods and demons catch sight of such a halo, they hide and do not dare to stir.

On Dragon-Tiger Mountain lives the Master of the Heavens, who receives the gods whenever they call. One day, while the mandarin of the next district was paying him a visit, the God of War came down to the mountain. The Master of the Heavens told the mandarin to step out of sight into an inner room, and then went out himself to greet his guest.

The mandarin could not resist. He put his eye to a crack in the door and looked. There stood the God of War, red of face and dressed in green, fearsome and majestic. All at once a red halo blazed up over the god’s head. Its rays shot right through into the inner room, and the mandarin was struck blind in one eye.

After a while the God of War left, and the Master of the Heavens walked out with him to see him off. Suddenly Guan Di, the God of War, cried out in alarm: “Confucius is on his way! The halo he wears lights up the entire world. Even from a thousand miles off I cannot bear its brightness. I must get out of his road at once!” He stepped onto a cloud and was gone.

The Master of the Heavens went back and told the mandarin what had happened. “It is lucky you did not meet the God of War face to face,” he said. “Anyone who lacks the highest virtue and the highest wisdom would melt away in the red glow of his halo.” Then he gave the mandarin a pill of the elixir of life to swallow, and little by little the blind eye could see again.

People also say that scholars wear a red halo, and that devils, foxes and ghosts are afraid when they see it.

There was once a scholar whose friend was a fox. The fox would visit him at night and take him walking through the villages. Together they could go into people’s houses and watch everything that happened there without anyone noticing. But whenever the fox saw from far away a red halo hanging over a house, he refused to go in. The scholar asked him why.

“Those houses belong to famous scholars,” the fox said. “The bigger the halo, the deeper the learning. I am afraid of them and dare not cross their thresholds.”

“But I am a scholar as well,” said the man. “Don’t I have a halo? Why aren’t you afraid of me, instead of strolling about with me like this?”

“Around your head there is only a black fog,” the fox replied. “I have never once seen a halo there.”

The scholar was stung and began to scold him, but the fox vanished with a loud, rude laugh.

About this story

“The Halos of the Saints” is chapter XXVII of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921). It opens the section Wilhelm titled “Tales of Saints and Magicians.”

Wilhelm notes that the tale is retold as it has been handed down. He explains that the Master of the Heavens, Tian Schi, lives on Lung Hu Schan, the Dragon-Tiger Mountain, and uses the historical comparison “Taoist pope.” That is the editor’s analogy, rather than a claim that Daoist institutions have the same structure as the papacy. The God of War, Guan Di, has his own chapter in the same book.

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

Best for ages 9–12 — includes temporary blindness, a threat of melting in supernatural light, and a satire of claimed learning.

Reading the story closely

The two scenes use light differently. In the first, even the God of War yields to Confucius’s brilliance, placing wisdom above martial power. In the second, a scholar expects his title to guarantee the same visible distinction, but the fox denies it. The shift from awe to ridicule makes the second scene a test of the first scene’s idea.

Compare who describes the light in each episode. The mandarin experiences a flash; the scholar depends on what a fox says. Is the fox a trustworthy judge, a teasing friend, or both? Support a reading with the laughter at the end. Halos and the restorative pill belong to the legend’s imagery, not a way to measure learning or treat an eye injury.

Think about it

• Why is even the God of War afraid of Confucius’s halo?
• What happens to the mandarin because he peeps through the door?
• What do you think the fox means when he says the scholar has only a black fog around his head?

You may also like

• The God of War — Wilhelm’s chapter on Guan Di himself
• Laotsze — the next chapter among Wilhelm’s saints and magicians
• Fox-Fire — another Wilhelm tale of a fox and a human who takes its treasure