of his true name,
his time nor his family. He was often seen in the market-place, clad
in a torn blue robe and wearing only a single shoe, beating a block of
wood and singing the nothingness of life.

The sixth Immortal is known as Li Tia Guai (Li with the iron crutch).
He lost his parents in early youth and was brought up in his older
brother's home. His sister-in-law treated him badly and never gave him
enough to eat. Because of this he fled into the hills, and there
learned the hidden wisdom.

Once he returned in order to see his brother, and said to his
sister-in-law: "Give me something to eat!" She answered: "There is no
kindling wood on hand!" He replied: "You need only to prepare the
rice. I can use my leg for kindling wood, only you must not say that
the fire might injure me, and if you do not no harm will be done."

His sister-in-law wished to see his art, so she poured the rice into
the pot. Li stretched one of his legs out under it and lit it. The
flames leaped high and the leg burned like coal.

When the rice was nearly boiled his sister-in-law said: "Won't your
leg be injured?"

And Li replied angrily: "Did I not warn you not to say anything! Then
no harm would have been done. Now one of my legs is lamed." With these
words he took an iron poker and fashioned it into a crutch for
himself. Then he hung a bottle-gourd on his back, and went into the
hills to gather medicinal herbs. And that is why he is known as Li
with the Iron Crutch.

It is also told of him that he often was in the habit of ascending
into the heavens in the spirit to visit his master Laotsze. Before he
left he would order a disciple to watch his body and soul within it,
so that the latter did not escape. Should seven days have gone by
without his spirit returning, then he would allow his soul to leave
the empty tenement. Unfortunately, after six days had passed, the
disciple was called to the death-bed of his mother, and when the
master's spirit returned on the evening of the seventh day, the life
had gone out of its body. Since there was no place for his spirit in
his own body, in his despair he seized upon the first handy body from
which the vital essence had not yet dispersed. It was the body of a
neighbor, a lame cripple, who had just died, so that from that time on
the master appeared in his form.

The seventh Immortal is called Hang Siang Dsi. He was the nephew of
the famous Confucian scholar Han Yu, of the Tang dynasty. From