The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away

In the western part of Lo Yang, the old capital, there was a ruined monastery with an enormous pagoda, hundreds of stories tall. Even at its very top there was room for three or four people to stand.

Not far away lived a beautiful girl. One sweltering summer day she was sitting in the courtyard of her home trying to keep cool, when a sudden whirlwind swept down and carried her away. When she opened her eyes, she was on top of the pagoda, and a young man dressed like a student was standing beside her.

He was most polite and pleasant. “It seems that heaven meant us to meet,” he said. “If you will promise to marry me, we shall be very happy together.” But the girl would not agree. Then, said the student, she would have to stay on the top of the pagoda until she changed her mind. He set out bread and wine for her to eat and drink, and vanished.

After that he came every day and asked whether she had changed her mind, and every day she told him she had not. Each time he left, he carefully blocked the openings at the top of the pagoda with stones, and he had pulled out some of the stair steps so that she could not climb down. Whenever he came, he brought her food and drink, and he gave her rouge and powder, dresses and embroidered coats and all kinds of jewelry, which he said he had bought in the market. He also hung up a great glowing carbuncle so that the top of the pagoda was as bright at night as by day. The girl had food, clothes and jewels, but she remained a prisoner far from home.

But one day, when he went away, he forgot to close the window. Without his knowing it, the girl watched him, and she saw him change from a young man into an ogre. His hair was as red as madder dye, and his face had changed with the rest of his body. His eyes bulged out of his head, and his mouth was like a bowl full of blood. Crooked white fangs stuck out past his lips, and two wings sprouted from his shoulders. He spread them, flew down to the ground, and at once turned back into a man.

The girl was so frightened that she burst into tears. Looking down from the pagoda, she saw a traveler walking below. She shouted, but the pagoda was so high that her voice did not reach him. She waved, but he did not look up. At last she could think of nothing else to do but throw down the old clothes she had been wearing when she was carried off. They floated down through the air to the ground.

The traveler picked up the clothes. Then he looked up at the pagoda, and at the very top he made out a tiny figure that seemed to be a girl, though he could not see her face. For a long time he puzzled over who it might be. Then he saw a light shining up there. “My neighbor’s daughter was carried off by a magic wind,” he said to himself. “Could she be up there?” So he took the clothes and showed them to the girl’s parents, and when they saw them they burst into tears.

The girl had a brother who was stronger and braver than anyone for miles around. When he heard the story, he took a heavy axe and went to the pagoda. There he hid in the tall grass and waited to see what would happen. Just as the sun was setting, a young man came striding along the hill. Suddenly he turned into an ogre, spread his wings and got ready to fly. But the brother hurled his axe and hit him on the arm. The ogre let out a great roar and fled toward the western hills.

The brother saw that there was no way to climb the pagoda alone, so he went home and asked some neighbors for help. The next morning they came back with him and climbed up inside the pagoda. Most of the stairs were still sound, for the ogre had only broken the ones near the top, and those they got past with a ladder. Then the brother brought his sister down and took her safely home.

And that was the end of the enchantment.

Where this story comes from

“The Maiden Who Was Stolen Away” is chapter LVII of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921), among his ghost stories. It is set in Lo Yang, which Wilhelm calls the old capital.

Wilhelm’s one-line note says the ogre is a Yakscha, or Fe Tian Ya Tscha. His note to the very next chapter, “The Flying Ogre,” says that ogre belongs to the Yakscha tribe as well.

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

Best for older readers with an adult — includes abduction, confinement intended to force marriage, a frightening transformation and an axe wound.

Reading the story closely

The captor’s polite speech is contradicted before his monstrous body is revealed: he refuses to let the girl leave. The story therefore gives readers evidence of coercion without needing an ugly appearance to identify it. Her repeated refusal and improvised signal also make her an active participant in the rescue.

Trace the message from clothing to traveller to parents to brother and neighbors. Each person supplies something different—recognition, information, protection or access. The ladder completes what the axe cannot do. This ending depends on coordinated help, not on a promise that courage alone can break every spell.

Questions to ask

• What does the student refuse to give the girl despite all his gifts?
• How does the girl manage to send for help when no one can hear her?
• What clue helps the traveler guess who is on top of the pagoda?

More stories like this

• The Flying Ogre — the next chapter, with another ogre of the Yakscha tribe
• The Kingdom of the Ogres — a merchant shipwrecked among ogres
• The Ghost Who Was Foiled — another Wilhelm ghost story with a narrow escape