Three-legged turtle () and Three-legged

softshell turtle Trionychidae is a family of turtles, commonly known as softshell turtles or simply softshells. The family was described by Leopold Fitzinger in 1826. Softshells include some of the world's largest freshwater turtles, though many can adapt to li ...

() are mythical turtles from China. According to the ancient dictionary ''

Erya The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the firs ...

'', the former (pertaining to hardshell turtles including

tortoise Tortoises ( ) are reptiles of the family Testudinidae of the order Testudines (Latin for "tortoise"). Like other turtles, tortoises have a shell to protect from predation and other threats. The shell in tortoises is generally hard, and like o ...

s) is properly called Fen (), and the latter, Nai ().

Descriptions

From the ancient text ''

Classic of Mountains and Seas The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shanhai jing'' (), formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed si ...

'' (trans. Anne Birrell):

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 ...

(276–324) noted that they were in his times also found in Junshan Lake () in Yangxian County (, approximately modern

Yixing Yixing () is a county-level city administered under the prefecture-level city of Wuxi in southern Jiangsu province, China, and is part of the Yangtze Delta, Yangtze River Delta. The city is known for its traditional Yixing ware, Yixing clay ware t ...

). The morbid '' zhiguai'' tale "Three-legged Softshell Turtles" by the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

writer Lu Can (1494–1551), from his collection ''Gengsi Bian'' (), contradicts the Classic's dietary advice. One summer day in 1510, in the county of

Taicang Taicang is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, China. The city located in the south of the Yangtze River estuary opposite Nantong, being bordered by Shanghai proper to the south, while the river also delineates ...

, a man bought a softshell turtle with three feet from a group of fishermen. His wife slaughtered and cooked the turtle, and the man ate the dish alone before going to sit outside. When she went to check on him, she saw only his clothes and a pile of hair, but he was nowhere to be seen. The village head suspected foul play and had her taken to the ''

yamen A ''yamen'' (''ya-men''; ; Manchu: ''yamun'') was the administrative office or residence of a local bureaucrat or mandarin in imperial China, Korea, and Vietnam. In some places, such as Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, it was named as ''al ...

'' for interrogation. The

county magistrate The county magistrate or local magistrate, known by several Chinese names, was the official in charge of the '' xian'' ("county"), the lowest level of central government in Imperial and early Republican China. The magistrate was the official ...

, Huang Tingxuan, could not make sense of it so he threw her in prison and ordered the fishermen to catch another three-legged softshell turtle or face consequences. When after a few days, another creature was caught, Huang made the wife cook the turtle in the same way and had a felon eat it. The felon also disappeared—minus his clothes and hair—so Huang released the woman. The fishermen then told him their story: Their first catch after receiving his order was something extremely heavy. When they dragged it to shore, they saw that it looked like a limbless human with all facial features intact; the eyes were closed but the body was shifting awkwardly. The terrified fishermen threw the monster back into the

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

, went to another location, and caught an identical-looking creature. Thereupon they prayed to the river god with sacrificial items and begged for help meeting Huang's deadline. On the third attempt, they caught the three-legged turtle that they brought in, but they did not know what it was that they caught before.

Possible significance

Gun A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...

, the father of

Yu the Great Yu the Great or Yu the Engineer was a legendary king in ancient China who was credited with "the first successful state efforts at flood control", his establishment of the Xia dynasty, which inaugurated Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic ru ...

and a key figure in the myth of the

Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primeva ...

, transformed himself into a yellow animal after his execution on Feather Mountain. The animal was either a bear () or a ''nai'' (, "three-legged softshell turtle" according to ''Erya''). Maxime Kaltenmark writes (trans. Gerald Honigsblum): Sarah Allan notes that Gun's status as a three-legged turtle makes him "a counterpart for the three-legged sun-bird of the

Shang The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty that ruled in the Yellow River valley during the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and followed by the Western Zhou dyn ...

". Sarah Allan also speculates that the origin of the three-legged turtle may be related to the legends of

Nüwa Nüwa, also read Nügua, is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humani ...

, who, according to ''

Huainanzi The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to defi ...

'', cut off four legs of an ''Ao''-turtle to support the corners of the sky, when in fact, "if only Bu Zhou Mountain were broken as in other versions of the myth, only one leg would have been needed to prop up the sky."

References

{{reflist Mythological and legendary Chinese turtles Legendary creatures with absent body parts Creatures described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas

Descriptions

Possible significance

See also

References