, so that they might obtain whatever joy they
wished for.

THE STORY OF THE BIRD FENG

A CHINESE FAIRY TALE

In the Book of the Ten Thousand Wonders there are three hundred and
thirty-three stories about the bird called _Feng_, and this is one of
them.

Ta-Khai, Prince of Tartary, dreamt one night that he saw in a place
where he had never been before an enchantingly beautiful young maiden
who could only be a princess. He fell desperately in love with her, but
before he could either move or speak, she had vanished. When he awoke he
called for his ink and brushes, and, in the most accomplished
willow-leaf style, he drew her image on a piece of precious silk, and in
one corner he wrote these lines:

The flowers of the paeony
Will they ever bloom?
A day without her
Is like a hundred years.

He then summoned his ministers, and, showing them the portrait, asked if
any one could tell him the name of the beautiful maiden; but they all
shook their heads and stroked their beards They knew not who she was.

So displeased was the prince that he sent them away in disgrace to the
most remote provinces of his kingdom. All the courtiers, the generals,
the officers, and every man and woman, high and low, who lived in the
palace came in turn to look at the picture. But they all had to confess
their ignorance. Ta-Khai then called upon the magicians of the kingdom
to find out by their art the name of the princess of his dreams, but
their answers were so widely different that the prince, suspecting their
ability, condemned them all to have their noses cut off. The portrait
was shown in the outer court of the palace from sunrise till sunset, and
exalted travellers came in every day, gazed upon the beautiful face, and
came out again. None could tell who she was.

Meanwhile the days were weighing heavily upon the shoulders of Ta-Khai,
and his sufferings cannot be described; he ate no more, he drank no
more, and ended by forgetting which was day and which was night, what
was in and what was out, what was left and what was right. He spent his
time roaming over the mountains and through the woods crying aloud to
the gods to end his life and his sorrow.

It was thus, one day, that he came to the edge of a precipice. The
valley below was strewn with rocks, and the thought came to his mind
that he had been led to this place to put a term to his misery. He was
about to throw himself into the depths below when