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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore

@xingwu.bsky.social

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · Nov 21

🦋 Folklore-related tags on Bluesky, along with their hosts—already active on the platform—who run weekly themes:

#MythologyMonday
#FairyTaleTuesday
#LegendaryWednesday
#WyrdWednesday
#BOOKOLOGYTHURSDAY
#FolkyFriday
#BookWormSat
#FolkloreSunday
#BookChatWeekly

Please see their accounts below 👇

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4h

exposing the suffering entombed within the Wall’s grandeur. 2/2
Story in ALT

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4h

Lady Meng Jiang wept so fiercely at the Great Wall that it crumbled, stone by stone, revealing her husband’s buried body.
In Chinese #folklore, she’s not just a grieving widow, but a voice for the countless lives lost to imperial ambition. Her tears tore through silence, 1/2

Lady Meng Jiang was a beauty during the time of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Shortly after their marriage, her husband Wan Qiuliang (aka Wan Qiliang, Fan Xiliang, etc) was taken away by government officials to labor on the construction of the Great Wall and Shanhaiguan. Lady Meng Jiang, concerned about the cold northern weather, traveled a long distance to bring warm clothes to her husband. Finally arriving at the Great Wall on the first day of October, she was informed that Quliang had died from illness due to unsuitability to the local environment and had been buried along with many other laborers who died from plague and overwork in a mass grave. 1/2

Due to official relocation of the wall, their graves ended up beneath the Great Wall. Lady Meng Jiang cried out in sorrow, causing an 800-mile stretch of the Great Wall to collapse. Finding only whitened bones of the laborers beneath the wall, she prayed to the heavens, hoping to find her husband's remains. She then pricked her finger with a hairpin, letting blood drip among a pile of dry bones. Her blood stuck to a particular set of bones. Overwhelmed with grief, she covered the bones with her clothing and buried them. 2/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 8h

referring to longevity. Together, cat and butterfly become a visual pun for long life. Beneath Huizong’s delicate brush, playfulness turns prophetic, where every flick of fur and flutter of wing whispers a blessing of endurance. 2/2
#caturday #art
Parts from 《耄耋圖》宋徽宗(趙佶)

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 8h

Emperor Huizong of the Song (1082–1135) may have faltered as a ruler, but his artistry was unmatched. In his paintings, cats often stalk butterflies, a scene both tender and symbolic.
The word for cat (māo) echoes mào (耄), meaning old age, while butterfly (dié) sounds like dié (耋), 1/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 1d

fit the image of the gentle, auspicious creature too closely to ignore. Its appearance was hailed as a cosmic omen, affirming harmony under Heaven. 2/2

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 1d

When a giraffe arrived at the Ming(1368–1644) court after Zheng He’s first voyage, Emperor Zhu Di saw not an exotic beast but the long-dreamed Qilin, a herald of peace and prosperity in Chinese mythology.
The reticulated Somali giraffe, with its towering neck and patterned hide, 1/2

《瑞應麒麟圖(It reads 'An auspicious painting of Qilin', :) )》明沈度

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 1d

elixirs of immortality; and Wu Gang, forever fated to cut the tree that never falls. Their stories intertwine in moonlight, weaving a celestial realm where longing, punishment, and immortality drift together.2/2

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 1d

In Chinese #mythology, Guanghan Palace (廣寒宮) graces the moon like a dream carved in silver.
At its heart stands an osmanthus tree over 500 feet tall, fragrant, eternal, and endlessly resilient. Here lives Chang’e, the moon goddess who fled to the heavens; Yutu, the jade rabbit pounding 1/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 2d

bestowing fortune on those who live with integrity. 2/2
🎨《海上添籌圖》改琦,清

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 2d

In Chinese #mythology, Huang Zu (黃祖) is a divine tree spirit and guardian goddess, dwelling in a towering tree where thousands of birds nest. With a flick of her wrist, she can summon rain, nourishing the land and those who honor her. Huang Zu watches over the pure of heart, 1/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 2d

his age outlasted reckoning. Over time, the phrase became a poetic blessing for birthdays, wishing not just long life, but a life rich in wisdom and timeless grace.
To add a chip is to honor a soul who, like the Sea House, quietly endures the tides of change. 2/2
Story in ALT.

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 2d

In Chinese #mythology, the Sea House (海屋) stores time itself. Its “chips” marking the shifting world. Inside, years pass like moments; outside, moments stretch into years.
From this legend comes the phrase 海屋添籌, “adding chips to the Sea House”, born from a tale of an elder so ancient 1/2

清緙絲海屋添籌圖 The story of "海屋添籌" (haiwutianchou) comes from Su Shi's "東坡誌林·三老語" (Dongpo Zhilin, the Sayings of Three Old Men): "Once upon a time, three old men met and someone asked them their ages. One of them said, 'My age is beyond counting, but I remember being friends with Pangu when I was young.' Another said, 'When the sea turned into mulberry fields, I would put down a chip each time. By now, my chips have filled up ten rooms.' The third said, 'The peach I ate from the Immortal Peach Tree, I threw the pit away at the foot of Mount Kunlun. Now, it is as tall as Mount Kunlun.'"

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 3d

wild creativity, or greatness that refuses confinement. Whether describing poetic genius or visionary thought, it praises those who, like the sky horse, move with a rhythm too vast for ordinary roads: riders of the wind, thinkers beyond the clouds. 2/2
📷 The sky horse in Dunhuang murals

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 3d

The idiom 天馬行空, “sky horse flying through the heavens”, soars from the myth of the celestial horse, a creature of divine speed and untamed grace.
In Chinese culture, this sky horse embodies brilliance unchained, surpassing earthly limits. The phrase evokes boundless imagination, 1/2

The sky horse in Dunhuang murals 明代劉廷振《薩天錫詩集序》：「其所以神化而超出於眾表者；殆猶天馬行空而步驟不凡。」

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 3d

bronze vessels and jade artifacts. The Kuilong Pattern Agate Bi embodies this tradition, its swirling design not just ornamental but mythic. 2/2
📷 夔龍紋瑪瑙璧, Western Jin Period (266–316 CE)

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 3d

Kuilong, a one-footed dragon-like creature, dances through early Chinese mythology and art with quiet power.
Unlike typical dragons, its lone foot marks it as otherworldly, a symbol of imbalance made sacred. This unique form appears in ancient decorative motifs, especially on 1/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4d

fluid as the subject itself. Each panel whispers a different mood: spring’s glimmer, autumn’s hush, winter’s frozen breath. 2/2

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4d

🎨 Twelve Shapes of Water by Ma Yuan of the Southern Song Dynasty captures water not as a single form, but as a living rhythm. Across twelve scenes tied to shifting seasons and distant regions, Ma Yuan paints ripples, currents, and stillness with brushwork as 1/2
#art #painting

He abandoned the traditional fish-scale painting technique and extensively used an improved net-pattern method, employing lines to validate the artistic conception of 'water's ever-changing form' and 'emptiness leaving traces more compelling than visible marks.'

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4d

clothed in subtle fragrance, while a child in green danced beside her. At dawn, he woke beneath a blooming plum tree, its boughs teeming with kingfishers. The dream unraveled: the woman was the plum spirit, the child her feathered companion. 2/2
🎨 Tao Lengyue, 1895-1985

XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 4d

Among ancient Chinese literati, admiring plum blossoms was more than pastime. It was poetry in practice.
In Tang Dynasty #folklore, a tale from the Sui era captures this reverence. Zhao Shixiong, visiting Fuluo Mountain, dreamt of drinking wine with a graceful woman 1/2
#folklore #painting

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 5d

Neither ghost nor beast, Kang Nang lures with innocence and dies from dislocation. 2/2

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 5d

Kang Nang (傒囊) is a haunting presence in Chinese folklore, a mountain-dwelling creature that looks like a child. When spotted, it silently extends its hand, inviting you closer. But beware: if you grasp its hand and lead it away from where it stands, it dies. 1/2
🎨 Shan Ze

干寶，搜神記十二，"兩山之間，其精如小兒，見人，則伸手欲引人，名曰「傒囊」，引去故地，則死。"

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 5d

undeterred, unyielding.
In Chinese #mythology, Xing Tian isn’t just a warrior, he’s the embodiment of unbreakable will, a symbol of rebellion that refuses to die, even when silenced. 2/2
🎨 Xing Tian, by Shanze

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 5d

Xing Tian (刑天) is defiance made flesh. In Shanhaijing, he challenges the Yellow Emperor and loses his head. But death doesn’t claim him. Headless, he rises again, eyes burning in his chest, a mouth roaring from his navel. With axe and shield, he continues the fight, 1/2
#mythology

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XingWu🐉ChineseFolklore @xingwu.bsky.social · 6d

sinological gem breathes life into the plants, insects, and animals woven into its verses. Through careful illustration and commentary, it bridges poetry and natural history, revealing how ancient imagery mirrored lived experience. 2/2

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