2017-04-20 Shouguang Vegetable SciTech Fair 3

In Chinese folklore and

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

, the Seven Fairies () are the seven daughters of

Jade Emperor In the Chinese mythology, myths and Chinese folk religion, folk religion of Chinese culture, the Jade Emperor or Yudi is one of the representations of the Primordial Divinity (Tai Di), primordial god. In Taoist theology, he is the assistant of ...

and

Queen Mother of the West The Queen Mother of the West, known by #Names, various local names, is a mother goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese religion and Chinese mythology, mythology, also worshipped later in neighbouring countries. She is attested from ancient ...

. In modern times, the Seven Fairies are best known for their parts in the Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy legend.

"The Bird Maidens"

"The Bird Maidens" (), a tale from the fourth-century collection ''

In Search of the Supernatural ''In Search of the Supernatural'' (), is a 4th-century Chinese compilation of legends, short stories, and hearsay concerning Chinese gods, ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena in the '' zhiguai'' and '' chuanqi'' styles. Although the autho ...

'' (which contains a different tale for

Dong Yong In Chinese folklore, Dong Yong () is one of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars who sold himself into servitude to bury his dead father. Touched by his filial piety, a celestial maiden (usually identified as the Seventh Fairy in modern times) ca ...

), mentions a man in Xinyu (in Jiangxi Province) discovering "six or seven young maidens in a field, all wearing wonderful feather garments". He marries one of the girls after stealing her feathered robe so that she can't fly off, but one day she finds her robe and flies away. She later returns and flies off with their three daughters. A similar record is found in

Guo Pu Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun (), was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collec ...

's ''Mythical Tales'' () from the same period. This "quasi-

Swan Maiden The "swan maiden" () is a tale classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index, ATU 400, "The Swan Maiden" or "The Man on a Quest for His Lost Wife," in which a man makes a pact with, or marries, a supernatural female being who later departs. The ...

" story was possibly told to explain why some large birds carried off children. Today, Xinyu has a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

and tourist

resort A resort (North American English) is a self-contained commercial establishment that aims to provide most of a vacationer's needs. This includes food, drink, swimming, accommodation, sports, entertainment and shopping, on the premises. A hotel ...

named Fairy Lake () which claims to be "the hometown of the legend of the Seven Fairies of China".

In ''Journey to the West''

In ''

Journey to the West ''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the Classic Chinese Novels, great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the ...

'', the

wants to host a peach party so she sends the Seven Fairies to the peach garden: After plucking many peaches, one of the fairies accidentally awakens Sun Wukong (

Monkey King Sun Wukong (, Mandarin pronunciation: ), also known as the Monkey King, is a literary and religious figure best known as one of the main characters in the 16th-century Chinese novel ''Journey to the West''. In the novel, Sun Wukong is a monk ...

), the "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven" now in charge of the garden. Sun Wukong asks them whether he is invited to the party. When they answer in the negative, a disappointed Sun Wukong casts a spell to transfix the fairies to the spot, before he heads straight for the Queen's palace.

Dong Yong and the Seventh Fairy

The well-known story of Heaven sending a celestial maiden to assist the filial son

first appeared in writing in the third century. For more than a millennium after the fourth century this maiden — Dong Yong's wife-to-be — was identified as Weaver Girl (zhinü): after all she was to help him on the

loom A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...

! In late imperial times, however, the Weaver Girl was replaced in this legend by the Seventh Fairy, so as to avoid hints of infidelity because the Weaver Girl is also a protagonist in another old legend,

The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl ''The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl'' are characters found in Chinese mythology and appear eponymously in a romantic Chinese folk tale. The story tells of the romance between Zhinü (; the weaver girl, symbolized by the star Vega) and Niulang ...

. (There have also been attempts to present Dong Yong as an incarnation of the Cowherd.) Subsequently the other six fairies also became part of the plot: for example they present a magical incense to their youngest sister before her trip to the mortal world:

References

Journey to the West characters Tian Xian Pei Chinese goddesses {{folklore-stub