al Chinese texts. I am indebted to
Professor H.A. Giles, and to his publishers, Messrs Kelly and Walsh,
Shanghai, for permission to reprint from _Strange Stories from a
Chinese Studio_ the fox legends given in Chapter XV.

This is, so far as I know, the only monograph on Chinese mythology
in any non-Chinese language. Nor do the native works include any
scientific analysis or philosophical treatment of their myths.

My aim, after summarizing the sociology of the Chinese as a
prerequisite to the understanding of their ideas and sentiments,
and dealing as fully as possible, consistently with limitations of
space (limitations which have necessitated the presentation of a
very large and intricate topic in a highly compressed form), with
the philosophy of the subject, has been to set forth in English dress
those myths which may be regarded as the accredited representatives
of Chinese mythology--those which live in the minds of the people and
are referred to most frequently in their literature, not those which
are merely diverting without being typical or instructive--in short,
a true, not a distorted image.

_Edward Theodore Chalmers Werner_

_Peking_
_February_ 1922

Contents

Chapter

I. The Sociology of the Chinese
II. On Chinese Mythology
III. Cosmogony--P'an Ku and the Creation Myth
IV. The Gods of China
V. Myths of the Stars
VI. Myths of Thunder, Lightning, Wind, and Rain
VII. Myths of the Waters
VIII. Myths of Fire
IX. Myths of Epidemics, Medicine, Exorcism, Etc.
X. The Goddess of Mercy
XI. The Eight Immortals
XII. The Guardian of the Gate of Heaven
XIII. A Battle of the Gods
XIV. How the Monkey Became a God
XV. Fox Legends
XVI. Miscellaneous Legends
The Pronunciation of Chinese Words

_Mais cet Orient, cette Asie, quelles en sont, enfin, les frontieres
reelles?... Ces frontieres sont d'une nettete qui ne permet aucune
erreur. L'Asie est la ou cesse la vulgarite, ou nait la dignite,
et ou commence l'elegance intellectuelle. Et l'Orient est la ou sont
les sources debordantes de poesie._

_Mardrus_,
_La Reine de Saba_

CHAPTER I

The Sociology of the Chinese

Racial Origin

In spite of much research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese
people remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence
they came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration
from elsewhere; the Chinese th