y met twelve women who had
the appearance of evil spirits. Chang Tao-ling asked them whence
came the shaft of white light. They answered that it was the _yin_,
or female, principle of the earth. "Where is the source of the salt
water?" he asked again. "That pond in front of you," they replied,
"in which lives a very wicked dragon." Chang Tao-ling tried to force
the dragon to come out, but without success. Then he drew a phoenix
with golden wings on a charm and hurled it into the air over the
pond. Thereupon the dragon took fright and fled, the pond immediately
drying up. After that Chang Tao-ling took his sword and stuck it in
the ground, whereupon a well full of salt water appeared on the spot.

The Spirits of the Well

The twelve women each offered Chang Tao-ling a jade ring, and asked
that they might become his wives. He took the rings, and pressing
them together in his hands made of them one large single ring. "I
will throw this ring into the well," he said, "and the one of you
who recovers it shall be my wife." All the twelve women jumped into
the well to get the ring; whereupon Chang Tao-ling put a cover over
it and fastened it down, telling them that henceforth they should be
the spirits of the well and would never be allowed to come out.

Shortly after this Chang Tao-ling met a hunter. He exhorted him not
to kill living beings, but to change his occupation to that of a
salt-burner, instructing him how to draw out the salt from salt-water
wells. Thus the people of that district were advantaged both by being
able to obtain the salt and by being no longer molested by the twelve
female spirits. A temple, called Temple of the Prince of Ch'ing Ho,
was built by them, and the territory of Ling Chou was given to Chang
Tao-ling in recognition of the benefits he had conferred upon the
people.

The Dragon-king's Daughter

A graduate named Liu I, in the reign-period I Feng (A.D. 676-679)
of the Emperor Kao Tsung of the T'ang dynasty, having failed in
his examination for his licentiate's degree, when passing through
Ching-yang Hsien, in Ch'ang-an, Shensi, on his way home, saw a
young woman tending goats by the roadside. She said to him: "I am the
youngest daughter of the Dragonking of the Tung-t'ing Lake. My parents
married me to the son of the God of the River Ching, but my husband,
misled by the slanders of the servants, repudiated me. I have heard
that you are returning to the Kingdom of Wu, which is quite close