The Spirits of the Yellow River

In this collection’s account, spirits of the Yellow River are called Dai Wang, rendered ‘Great King.’ What follows presents river worship through supernatural stories, rather than describing how floods are actually controlled. For hundreds of years the river inspectors have kept reporting that all sorts of monsters show themselves in the river’s waves, sometimes as dragons, sometimes as cattle or horses, and that whenever one appears, a great flood follows. That is why temples stand along the riverbanks. The higher river spirits are honored as kings and the lower ones as captains, and hardly a day passes without sacrifices or plays in their honor. Whenever a broken dike has been mended, the emperor sends officials with sacrifices and ten great sticks of Tibetan incense. The incense is burned in a huge censer in the temple courtyard, and the river inspectors and all their men go to the temple to thank the gods for their help. People say these river gods were once good and loyal servants of earlier rulers who died from their labors keeping the dikes whole. After death their spirits became river kings, but when they show themselves in bodily form they appear as lizards, snakes and frogs.

The mightiest river king of all is the Golden Dragon-King. He often appears as a small golden snake with a square head, a low brow and four red dots above his eyes. He can make himself big or small as he likes and make the water rise or fall. He comes and goes without warning and lives where the Yellow River and the Imperial Canal meet. Besides him there are dozens of other river kings and captains, each with his own stretch of water. The boatmen of the Yellow River all keep careful lists describing in detail the lives and deeds of the river spirits.

The river spirits love watching plays. Across from every temple stands a stage. In the temple hall is the river king’s small spirit-tablet, and on the altar before it is a little bowl of gold lacquer filled with clean sand. When a little snake appears in the bowl, the river king has come. Then the priests sound the gong, beat the drum and read from the holy books. The official in charge is told at once, and he sends for a troupe of actors. Before they start, the actors go up to the temple, kneel, and ask the king to tell them which play he wants. The river god chooses one and points to it with his head, or writes signs in the sand with his tail, and the actors begin that play at once.

The river god does not care about the good or bad luck of human beings. He turns up suddenly and disappears just as suddenly, whenever it suits him.

Between the outer and inner dikes of the Yellow River lie a number of villages. Often the yellow water moves right up to the edge of the inner walls, rising straight up like a wall itself and creeping slowly forward. When people see it coming, they quickly burn incense, bow down and pray to the water, and promise the river god a play. Then the water draws back, and the word goes around: “The river god has asked for a play again!”

In a village in that district there once lived a rich man who built a stone wall twenty feet high around the village to keep the water out. He did not believe in the river spirits; he trusted his strong wall and did not worry at all. One evening the yellow water suddenly rose and stood in a straight line in front of the village, and the rich man had cannons fired at it. Then the water grew wild and swirled around the wall so high that it reached the gaps in the battlements, foaming and hissing as if it were about to pour over. Everyone in the village was terrified. They dragged the rich man out and made him kneel and beg forgiveness. They promised the river god a play, but it did no good. Only when they promised to build him a temple in the middle of the village and hold regular performances did the water sink lower and lower and slowly go back to its bed. The village fields were not harmed at all; enriched by the yellow mud, they gave a double harvest.

Once a scholar was walking across the fields with a friend to visit a relative. On the way they passed a temple of the river god where a new play was being performed, and the friend asked the scholar to go in and watch with him. When they entered the courtyard, they saw two big snakes coiled around the front pillars, poking out their heads as if watching the show. In the temple hall stood the altar with the bowl of sand, and in it lay a little snake with a golden body, a green head and red dots over its eyes. Its neck was stretched up, and its glittering little eyes never left the stage. The friend bowed, and the scholar copied him.

“What are the three river gods called?” the scholar whispered.

“The one in the temple is the Golden Dragon-King,” his friend replied. “The two on the pillars are captains. They do not dare to sit in the temple beside the king.”

The scholar was surprised and thought to himself, “Such a tiny snake! How can it have a god’s power? It would have to show me its might before I would worship it.”

He had not even put the thought into words when the little snake suddenly stretched its head out of the bowl, above the altar. Two enormous candles burned before the altar, each weighing more than ten pounds and as thick as a young tree, their flames blazing like torches. The snake pushed its head right into the middle of one candle flame. The flame was at least an inch wide and burning red, but suddenly its light turned blue and split into two tongues. The narrator imagines the candle’s heat as fierce enough to melt metal, yet the snake is not hurt.

Then the snake crawled into the censer. It was made of iron and so big that no one could get both arms around it, and its lid was worked with an open dragon pattern. The snake wove in and out of the holes in the lid, threading through every one of them, until it looked like embroidery in gold thread. In the end every opening, large and small, was filled with snake; to do that he must have stretched himself several dozen feet long. Then he poked his head out of the top of the censer and went back to watching the play.

The scholar was frightened. He bowed twice and prayed, “Great King, you have gone to this trouble for my sake! I honor you with all my heart!” The instant he had said it, the little snake was back in its bowl, as small as ever.

In Dsiningdschou they were once celebrating the river god’s birthday in his temple, giving him a play as a birthday present. The crowd was packed as tight as a wall when a simple farmer from the countryside came by and said loudly, “Why, that’s nothing but a tiny worm! It’s pure foolishness to honor it like a king!”

Before he had finished speaking, the snake shot out of the temple. It grew and grew until it wound three times around the stage, as thick as a small bucket, with a head like a dragon’s. Its eyes flashed like golden lamps and it spat red flame from its tongue. When it coiled and uncoiled, the whole stage shook as if it would collapse. The actors stopped their music and threw themselves down on the stage in prayer, and the whole crowd bowed to the ground in terror. Then some of the old men came over, threw the farmer to the ground and gave him a sound beating, so that he had to kneel before the snake and worship it. Then everyone heard a noise like a great many firecrackers going off. It went on for some time, and then the snake was gone.

East of Shantung lies the city of Dongschou, with a lookout tower and a great temple. At its foot is the water-city, with a sea gate on the north side through which the tide flows up into the town, and a camp of the border guard stands at that gate.

An officer who had served in the land forces was once transferred to this camp as its captain. He had not been at his new post long when he gave a banquet for some friends. In front of the pavilion where they were feasting lay a big stone shaped rather like a table, and suddenly a little snake was seen crawling across it, speckled with green and with red dots on its square head. The soldiers were about to kill it when the captain came out to see what was going on.

He looked, laughed, and said, “Don’t hurt him! He is the river king of Dsiningdschou. When I was stationed there, he sometimes paid me a visit, and I always gave him sacrifices and plays. Now he has come all this way on purpose to wish his old friend luck and see him again.”

There was a band in the camp whose musicians could dance and act like a real theater troupe. The captain had them start a performance at once, ordered another banquet of wine and fine dishes, and invited the river god to take his seat at the table.

Evening slowly came, and still the river god showed no sign of leaving. So the captain stepped up to him with a bow and said, “Here we are far from the Yellow River, and these people have never even heard your name. Your visit has been a great honor for me. But the people gathering outside are afraid of you. Now that you have seen your old friend, I am sure you will want to go home.”

With that he had a litter brought. Cymbals clashed, fireworks were set off, and finally a nine-gun salute was fired to see the god on his way. The little snake crawled into the litter, and the captain walked behind it. In this procession they came to the harbor, and just as it was time to say goodbye, the snake was already swimming in the water. It had grown much bigger. It nodded its head to the captain and disappeared.

Afterward people wondered and asked, “But the river god lives a thousand miles from here. How does he get to this place?”

“He is so powerful he can go anywhere,” the captain answered. “Besides, a waterway runs from his home to the sea. Coming down it and swimming out to sea takes him no time at all.”

About this story

“The Spirits of the Yellow River” is chapter XLIV of Richard Wilhelm’s The Chinese Fairy Book, translated by Frederick H. Martens (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1921), among his nature tales. It begins with river lore and then tells four short encounters with the little golden snake-king.

Wilhelm’s note says the Dai Wang have taken the place of the old river god Ho Be, the Count of the Stream, in popular belief, and that these spirits were thought to have put many obstacles in the way of the railway bridge over the Yellow River. He describes a spirit-tablet as a small wooden board bearing a deity’s name and discusses theatrical performances as offerings. His broader claims about the beginnings of religious images and comparisons with ancient Greece are not established by these tales. Dsiningdschou, he adds, is a district capital on the Imperial Canal near the Yellow River.

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

Best for ages 9–12 with discussion: flood danger, intimidation and villagers beating a doubter. These are legends of river power; disbelief does not justify assault, and performances are not practical flood protection.

Reading the story closely

The four encounters differ in how fear is managed. A village buys safety through a promise, the scholar interprets a private display, the crowd forces a farmer to worship, and the captain politely persuades an old acquaintance to leave. The same small snake becomes a threatening ruler or an honored guest according to the relationship around it.

Compare the cannons at the village wall with the salute at the harbor. The loud machinery first expresses resistance and later ceremony; the captain changes the social meaning of power instead of challenging it. Then compare the scholar and farmer: both doubt, but only one is beaten by other people. That difference belongs to the human crowd’s conduct, not just the snake’s size.

Think about it

• How do people know that the river king has come to the temple, and how does he choose a play?
• The scholar and the farmer both doubt the little snake. How is each one answered?
• Why do you think the river king travels so far to visit the captain?

You may also like

• How the River God’s Wedding Was Broken Off — Wilhelm’s tale of the older river god Ho Be
• The Dragon After His Winter Sleep — the dragon tale just before this one in the book
• The Queen of Heaven — the goddess who protects sailors at sea