The following is the basic, core version of an old legend:
A woodcutter went up the mountain to cut some wood. While there, he saw two people--two old men, by some accounts, or two children--playing chess. He stands by, observing the game, assuming only minutes have gone by. He feels something strange. He holds up the ax he's been carrying; the handle has totally rotted away. The woodcutter heads back home only to discover that his family is no longer there, that at least one century has lapsed.
Version 2: Rotted Ax Handle Mountain (Henan)
Up on Rotted Axe Handle Mountain, one can see strange foliage not seen elsewhere; stranger still are the many petrified trees there that jut up from the mountainscape, resembling ivory tusks. Once a traveler finds him/herself on Rotted Axe Handle Mountain, he or she will have truly entered the realm of immortals . . .
It so happens that woodcutter Wang Zhi was up on the mountain one day when he beheld two very old men playing a game of chess while seated beneath a peach tree. The old men were white whiskered and had a ruddy glow to their faces.
Wang Zhi was not a wealthy or particularly cultivated individual, but he too certainly appreciated the fine game of chess. He stopped, stood by the chess board and watched the two old gentlemen. On and on he watched, oblivious of the time or his duties.
Something then fluttered onto the ground past him and then more of the same onto his person. He looked up. Peach petals were floating downwards, littering the ground. Then, before he even knew it, rich, succulent ripe peaches appeared on the branches.
Wang Zhi couldn't resist plucking a peach from the tree and biting into it. The flavor was incredibly sweet. After eating the peach, a change came over him, a sensation he had never had before. He felt suddenly enlightened, his mind cleared, and his body, completely comfortable.
Then, almost as soon as they had appeared, the peaches were gone and the stems they had been on, withered and yellowed. The ground was now covered with dried, yellowed leaves.
Once again, though, the whole process repeated itself, with new green leaves immediately appearing . . .
Here, the narrative ends.
Version 3: Watching an All-Consuming Chess Match (Hubei)
A farmer took a little trip up the mountain, and there he saw two old men--one with a long black beard and the other, with a long white beard--playing chess. The farmer, intrigued, watched them for a long while.
The black-bearded man then stopped playing and addressed the farmer.
"There's a serious drought going on right now, isn't there?" he asked the farmer.
"Yes, that is the case. I have only a dou of sesame seeds to plant . . . "
"Suppose, Farmer, that I can show you how to plant a whole field with that small amount of seeds and how to reap a huge harvest?"
The farmer had his suspicions that this black-bearded man knew what he was talking about, but he, the farmer, was game and watched and listened as the old man with the black beard showed him the procedure. The farmer thanked him and returned home to his drought-stricken village. He decided to plant the seeds in the manner shown to him by the strange man up on the mountain.
In time the farmer had a huge harvest of valuable, useful, versatile sesame plants!
Overjoyed, the farmer filled a sack of sesame seeds to take up the mountain to the old men, especially the black-bearded one, as a thank-you gift. He hoisted the sack onto his mule and off he went back up the mountain.
From afar he spotted the pair--still playing chess.
He approached them and explained why he had come. The two old men, however, continued to play their game of chess. The farmer felt compelled to watch them play and watched them for only a few minutes. He then bid them farewell and turned around to head home.
His mule was missing . . . Had it headed back down the mountain without him? Ahh, the stubborn old cuss of an animal! He went back down the mountain to look for it.
And once he found himself back on level land, he discovered from those he had encountered that several hundred years had passed from his time . . .
from
Lin Jifu. 中国民间故事类型研究. [Research on the Types of Chinese Folktales]. Liu Shouhua, ed. Wuhan: Huazhong Shifan, 2002; pp. 179-190. 烂柯山_百度百科; 王质故乡——烂柯山的传说;
烂柯山 - Wikipedia
The original source is perhaps "Wang Zhi and the Rotted Axe Handle" from the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.).
In more than one culture, we can find examples in folklore of time dilation, a situation in which an incredible amount of time passes by in what seems like a short period. Time, that universal concept of measurement, here distorts itself, allowing years to be experienced as what had been regarded as minutes. Typically, such stories from East Asia may follow a pattern. A woodcutter, for example, heads off into a different part of the forest, or a fisherman lands on an uncharted island. In either locale, the visitor encounters some beings--old men or children playing xiangqi (i.e., "elephant chess" 象棋, or Chinese chess) in the forest, or, in the case of a native Taiwanese tale, beautiful but hostile Amazon-like females on a small barren island. (The latter story is "The Island of Women," an Amis legend in an anthology I'm preparing for future publication.) After tarrying among the beings or entities for what appears to be a brief time, he returns home, sometimes after extremely arduous circumstances, only to find that a huge gap in time has inexplicably transpired, that his village is now unrecognizable, that everyone he had once known is now long dead. The time traveler may then discover himself withered, prematurely aged, ready to die.
The three versions not surprisingly differ to some degree. The Henan version doesn't mention whether the visitor to the mountain ever saw his family again. The chances are he most likely didn't. The Hubei version has the old black-bearded man offer lifesaving aid to the farmer but doesn't warn him not to return. (The farmer should have probably known better.) The very terse, somewhat elliptical original Chinese version doesn't state whether the two chess players greeted or spoke to the farmer upon his return visit. In any case, the farmer apparently overstepped his bounds by daring to return to the abode of immortals who were busily playing chess, the game which is a metaphor or symbol for life itself. The farmer had already had tremendous luck by visiting the two immortals, receiving a gift, and going back and being able, presumably, to talk about it. To go back up again to locate them was a foolhardy idea just begging for trouble.
We find also similar motifs in "Rip Van Winkle," the well-known Japanese fairy tale "Urashima Taro," the Irish "Tir na nOg," and the Celtic fairy/leprechaun lore of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Among the latter are stories of individuals who left the safety of their homes to investigate strange, alluring music and then come across fairy fiddlers and dancers. Upon returning home, they then encounter what is now the predictable result of their lingering among otherworldly beings. One way or another, there is often an unpleasant price to pay for being in the company of the otherworldly. The Japanese have legends of children abducted by "sky dogs," tengu [天狗], weird anthropoid beings with wings who live in the forested mountains. Upon returning, if they ever do come back, these children are not necessarily prematurely aged but instead "touched in the head" and never quite the same again. Today we still hear incredible stories of missing time from those who claim to have encountered odd beings inside or outside "spacecraft" or UFOs, our very own modern versions of rendezvous with bizarre entities. The widely discussed Barney and Betty Hill case from the 1960's is a good example. In any case, the bottom line seems to be that a date with residents from the unknown is fraught with danger--mainly, because the natural order as represented by time is violated--and thus best avoided.
For similar tales of inexplicable events and entities that are said to be still occurring in the mountains of Taiwan, see the post for 12/24/13, "The Little Flying Swordsmen of the Mountain."
Motifs: cA163.1., "Gods play chess"; C712, "Staying too long in fairyland forbidden"; F377, "Supernatural lapse of time in fairyland"; F971, "Miraculous blossoming and bearing of fruit."
The three versions not surprisingly differ to some degree. The Henan version doesn't mention whether the visitor to the mountain ever saw his family again. The chances are he most likely didn't. The Hubei version has the old black-bearded man offer lifesaving aid to the farmer but doesn't warn him not to return. (The farmer should have probably known better.) The very terse, somewhat elliptical original Chinese version doesn't state whether the two chess players greeted or spoke to the farmer upon his return visit. In any case, the farmer apparently overstepped his bounds by daring to return to the abode of immortals who were busily playing chess, the game which is a metaphor or symbol for life itself. The farmer had already had tremendous luck by visiting the two immortals, receiving a gift, and going back and being able, presumably, to talk about it. To go back up again to locate them was a foolhardy idea just begging for trouble.
We find also similar motifs in "Rip Van Winkle," the well-known Japanese fairy tale "Urashima Taro," the Irish "Tir na nOg," and the Celtic fairy/leprechaun lore of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. Among the latter are stories of individuals who left the safety of their homes to investigate strange, alluring music and then come across fairy fiddlers and dancers. Upon returning home, they then encounter what is now the predictable result of their lingering among otherworldly beings. One way or another, there is often an unpleasant price to pay for being in the company of the otherworldly. The Japanese have legends of children abducted by "sky dogs," tengu [天狗], weird anthropoid beings with wings who live in the forested mountains. Upon returning, if they ever do come back, these children are not necessarily prematurely aged but instead "touched in the head" and never quite the same again. Today we still hear incredible stories of missing time from those who claim to have encountered odd beings inside or outside "spacecraft" or UFOs, our very own modern versions of rendezvous with bizarre entities. The widely discussed Barney and Betty Hill case from the 1960's is a good example. In any case, the bottom line seems to be that a date with residents from the unknown is fraught with danger--mainly, because the natural order as represented by time is violated--and thus best avoided.
For similar tales of inexplicable events and entities that are said to be still occurring in the mountains of Taiwan, see the post for 12/24/13, "The Little Flying Swordsmen of the Mountain."
Motifs: cA163.1., "Gods play chess"; C712, "Staying too long in fairyland forbidden"; F377, "Supernatural lapse of time in fairyland"; F971, "Miraculous blossoming and bearing of fruit."
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