A thousand years ago or more, there was a tribe in the cold and desert land of the Tartars, north of Korea, which grew to be famous in that part of the world. The men let their hair grow long and then plaited it into a long braid that hung down their backs, but they shaved the front of their heads. These people were called Manchus.
Almost from babyhood they were trained to ride on horses, and in time they became such bold horsemen and warriors, that they swooped down in thousands like clouds from their mountain land into warmer and richer regions. They had terrible bows and arrows, spears and swords, and they won many victories, so that other tribes joined them. They captured great China and invaded Korea.
As long as they had been wandering tribes in the desert, they were poor and lived on plain food that the grassy plains and forests could furnish, such as nuts, herbs, the milk of mares, and mutton. Their clothes were made of the wool from their own sheep. They were not proud, except of their strength, and they never asked who their grandfathers were.
But it was very different when they came to be rulers of a vast empire, rich and great like China, which had books and writing and a history of thousands of years. The elegant Chinese gentlemen and nobles used to call their conquerors the “horsey Tartars.” So they learned to wash and perfume themselves, and to care for jade, and tea, and porcelain, and silk, and other things Chinese.
Now it came to pass that when these people out of the desert sat on the thrones, and wore crowns on their heads, and dressed in satin, with jeweled robes and velvet shoes, they wanted to know who had been their ancestors long ago, and whence they came.
It would not do to believe that the fathers and mothers of so mighty a race were once common folks who in the distant deserts lived on acorns and pine nuts, with horse meat often, and mutton occasionally, and mare’s milk for dessert, or that they dressed in sheep skin and tended horses like stable boys.
Oh no! If the common folks, whom they now governed and made obey them, knew that the nobles who now lived in Peking and bullied the Koreans were once only stable and butcher boys, and had no houses but lived only in tents, there would surely be trouble. These Koreans and Chinese might disobey and rebel. They might even cut off their pigtails, which the Tartars had forced them to wear, and clip their locks, like men in Europe and America. These white-faced and bearded foreigners they called “Southern Barbarians,” because their ships came up from the south by way of India.
“What shall we do to make the Chinese and Koreans think we are somebody?” asked the Chinese Emperor of his wise men.
In the council it was the custom to ask first the younger men to tell what they thought about it, and for the oldest and wisest to speak last. They talked over the matter a long time. Finally one graybeard took off his goggles and made answer. He had on his nose a pair of horn-rimmed green glasses, bigger than those which anyone else wore. These it was supposed enabled him to look farther into the past and the future than his fellows. For the bigger the goggles, the more learned a man was supposed to be. He looked as wise as a stuffed owl, and was very fat. He spoke last, after all the younger counselors had been invited to give their opinions. Behind his back they called him Green Lamps, because of his goggles and their color.
Now in Korea and China it is not polite to keep your spectacles on your nose, when you look into the face of any person to whom you are talking. So pulling off his goggles old Green Lamps got down on his knees. Then he performed the kow-tow. That was done by knocking the matting of the floor with his forehead nine times. Green Lamps nearly broke his stiff bones in doing it, and then he addressed the Emperor, whose title was the Son of Heaven, as follows:
“Sire, the common people will not respect us unless we can show that our far-off ancestors were not born like plain folks, but came down from Heaven. There is an old woman, nearly two cycles or one hundred and seventeen years old, who tells the children about our distant forebears, who dropped out of the sky. Shall I call her in?”
“What is her name?” inquired His Imperial Majesty.
“Mrs. Crinkles, they call her, O Son of Heaven,” answered Green Lamps.
“Summon her before me instantly,” said the Emperor, and he waved his lotus-bud sceptre.
Now Green Lamps was a foxy old fellow. He wanted to get even higher in the Emperor’s favor and had expected this. So, having the old lady ready in another room of the palace, he went out and brought her in. She was all ready to tell her story, with which she had interested the children for a long time. It was the same story which her grandmother had told, when around the fire on winter nights young and old gathered to hear, while the winds howled and the snow covered the land. Once, Mrs. Crinkles was a rosy maid, but now in Peking she was the oldest living person among the Tartars.
The young women called her Mrs. Crinkles because of her face which was so wrinkled and puckered. Once while the old lady was telling her story a mischievous maiden started to count how many wrinkles and puckers, the old lady had in her face, but after reaching seventy-four she stopped, for fear there might be one pucker for every year; and the number 117 for some reason was thought to be unlucky.
In hobbled Mrs. Crinkles. She was already bowed with the weight of years so that when she bowed still lower the court chamberlain, remarking that it beat the kow-tow itself, excused her from making the nine prostrations of her stiff old bones. In fact it was feared that if she got down, she could never get up again. So she was allowed to sit and begin her story.
Her speech was not in the polished Chinese tongue, which for ages since Confucius has been refined by poets and scholars and literary ladies and gentlemen, but was in plain Tartar, or Manchu. Yet the general style of her narrative was very fine. As the old lady told it with animation and fine gestures all eyes sparkled and the Emperor’s visage—they called it the Dragon Countenance—beamed with delight.
This was the narrative:
On the other side of the Ever White Mountains, which divide Korea from Manchuria, is the Land of Lakes. On one of these, as in a mirror, the glorious blue sky and the forms of the snow-covered, majestic mountains are reflected. At night when the stars come out the waveless mirror is spangled with jewels. The fame of this crystal clear flood and the lovely tints which the sunrise and sunset daily made upon it reached even to the skies. There were three lovely virgins who dwelt in the Heavenly palaces and they wanted to come down and bathe in the water of this lake and live on its shores.
Permission was given them by the Lord of Heaven, and descending to the earth they were as happy as fairies could be. They never tired of their enjoyment, seeing their own beautiful faces in the mirror of the lake. When they rose early in the morning, to see the golden sun rise and tint the clouds and waters, it seemed like music when song answered song. When the light breezes rippled the surface of the lake they clapped their hands with delight and at bedtime they were lulled to sleep by the waves lapping on the quiet shore.
They fell in love with the beautiful land and became so charmed with it that in time they forgot about their old home and never wished to go back again into the skies. They were very kind to all living things and especially to the magpies. These feathered creatures were very plentiful and tame, so the maidens made pets of them and chose the magpie as their sacred bird.
Fond of gazing into the blue above and bathing in the liquid blue beneath, the three sisters went often into the lake. Leaving their robes on the pebbly beach, the youngest one always stepped last into the crystal waters. One day they noticed a magpie flying far above them in the air, which seemed to motion as if it had a message to deliver. On coming near they saw that it bore in its bill a blood-red fruit. Descending near where their clothes lay on the beach it poised for a moment, and then dropped the red fruit on the garment of the youngest of the sisters.
Rushing out of the water they sat down to talk over the wonderful incident. Then they agreed that this gift of the bird, which was sacred in their eyes, was a happy omen and meant that something good was to follow, though the magpie, after circling around their heads, flew away. They divided the fruit, which had a most delicious taste, enjoying it also as a message from Heaven.
From this divine token brought by a magpie, the sacred bird, the youngest of the virgins conceived and bore a son. They named the baby boy Golden Family Stem, for they felt sure that he would grow up and become the founder of a dynasty of kings, who should take the name of Great Bright from the shining water near which he was born.
The young mother brought up her boy to believe that he was not like ordinary mortals but was Heaven-born, and therefore should be noble in all his actions. When he grew up he was to be a prince of peace healing the quarrels of men, which should bring happiness and prosperity to them and to all the world.
So in the shadow of the great mountains, which were so high that they seemed to touch the sky and were as the shadows of the eternal world itself, he grew up. Nothing did he love more than to watch the play of light and shade on these mountain sides and in the valleys, as well as in the reflections on the fair face of the lake. These were to him as the smile of the Great Guardian Spirit.
But by and by his dear mother’s breath ceased and she “entered into the icy caves of the dead,” and he found himself an orphan with no one near him; for long since the other two virgins had gone away he knew not where.
Left alone instead of staying among the mountains the boy resolved to take the name of Fancha, or Heaven-born, and to go out into the world and lead men.
He at once set about to build a boat and in this, when finished, he floated down the outlet of the lake into a river. It happened that he landed at a place where three tribes or clans were at war, each one with the other. They were rude enough fellows, accustomed to brawls, and they cared nothing about other common fellows who were like themselves and no better.
But when they saw this noble youth alone and unarmed step fearlessly over the gunwale of the boat and advance to meet them in a friendly way, they were mightily impressed at his noble appearance and his courage in coming among them. When he told them the story of his birth, and that his mother had called him her Heaven-born son, they one and all shouted “Our chief!” and put on him the signs and tokens of lordship over them.
At once the Heaven-born youth became a great leader. At the head of his brave warriors he was always victorious, but he never provoked war. Other tribes flocked to his standard and in time he built a city, and for his wife and queen married a princess in the principal tribe, the daughter of a great chief, and several sons were born in his home.
But wars continued, for the custom of fighting was too old to be given up at once. In one of the battles he and all his sons except one, who was named Fancha, were killed. This one was chased by the enemy for a long distance over the open plains; for they hoped to capture him and make him their prisoner, before he could get into the forest and hide.
But when Fancha reached a dense dark wood a deliverer came to him in the form of the sacred bird, the magpie. This creature settled on his head, and Fancha at once took it to be the token of safety and to have been sent from Heaven.
When his pursuers rushed into the forest and began their glances among the trees looking around for the lad’s hiding place, he stood as still as a post. They seeing the bird supposed the figure was a piece of dried wood or the splinter of a tree struck by lightning, and rushed on and past him. By and by they gave up the hunt: by which time, Fancha had escaped to a place of safety.
“The rest of the story Your Majesty knows,” concluded the old lady, “for Fancha was your ancestor of seventeen generations ago.”
The great Emperor of all the Chinas was intensely interested and deeply moved at the story of the aged woman, and he loaded her with presents and honors, and created for her the office of Chief Story-Teller to the Imperial children. Besides this he made provision for her comfort as long as she lived. With a vermilion pencil he wrote with his own hand the order that when she “ascended to the skies” she should be buried in a gilded sandal-wood coffin, receive a state funeral, have a marble tablet over her grave, and be awarded posthumous honors.
As for old Green Lamps he was raised one degree higher in office, given the honors of wearing a jade button on his cap, and the right to ride in his palanquin nearer the Imperial palace door than any other mandarin, except the prime minister.