Night Tales of Lingmeng Mountain: Vol. 3

A monograph on local folk tales and ballads of Chenyu Vale, recording many absurd popular legends.

Volume III

In Chenyu Vale ballads long circulated: in an unknown ancient cavern once hid a god-ghost of old days—said to wear a jade skirt congealed from azure blood, leaning on a moonlit high chariot long since collapsed, sleeping beneath a dark pool of bottomless depth. In ages hard to recall she was once the old lord of Chenyu Vale, ruling birds, beasts, and adepti of mountain and wild, governing the rise and fall of the Bishui River, keeping as arbiter the natural balance between mortals and beasts. But that is a distant legend. How she, for incurable obsession, raised war and was at last defeated, sealed, and sunk into death-still dream—though native and settler stories both touch on it, detailed history can no longer be traced.

By no coincidence, the local people of Chenyu Vale once passed down such a mournful song:

"I would leave you pollia—who stays on the mid-islet?"

"Where are the cassia banners of old? Seek the high chariot in the dark bamboo."

"Alas the cry, black script; the pool is dark for what I think."[2]

Do the proud descendants of the mountain folk still keep memory of the lost Archon, and continue to commemorate? Most vivid stories have been worn away by time like flowing water, only faintly visible in ballads like green jade under a brook. Perhaps, as that lost boatman saw, in deep ravines and abysses one can still hear an ancient heartbeat, throbbing with the echo of azure blood?