low carved of
black jade, on which were graven sun and moon, clouds and thunder.
They covered me with a dainty coverlet spun of the hair of a hundred
gnats. A cover of that kind is very cool and refreshing in summer. I
felt of it with my hands, and it seemed to be formed of water; but
when I looked at it more closely, it was pure light."

Once the Emperor called together all his magicians in order to talk
with them about the fields of the blessed spirits. Sky O'Dawn was
there, too, and said: "Once I was wandering about the North Pole and I
came to the Fire-Mirror Mountain. There neither sun nor moon shines.
But there is a dragon who holds a fiery mirror in his jaws in order to
light up the darkness. On the mountain is a park, and in the park is a
lake. By the lake grows the glimmer-stalk grass, which shines like a
lamp of gold. If you pluck it and use it for a candle, you can see all
things visible, and the shapes of the spirits as well. It even
illuminates the interior of a human being."

Once Sky O'Dawn went to the East, into the country of the fortunate
clouds. And he brought back with him from that land a steed of the
gods, nine feet high. The Emperor asked him how he had come to find
it.

So he told him: "The Queen-Mother of the West had him harnessed to her
wagon when she went to visit the King-Father of the East. The steed
was staked out in the field of the mushrooms of life. But he trampled
down several hundred of them. This made the King-Father angry, and he
drove the steed away to the heavenly river. There I found him and rode
him home. I rode three times around the sun, because I had fallen
asleep on the steed's back. And then, before I knew it, I was here.
This steed can catch up with the sun's shadow. When I found him he was
quite thin and as sad as an aged donkey. So I mowed the grass of the
country of the fortunate clouds, which grows once every two-thousand
years on the Mountain of the Nine Springs and fed it to the horse; and
that made him lively again."

The Emperor asked what sort of a place the country of the fortunate
clouds might be. Sky O'Dawn answered: "There is a great swamp there.
The people prophesy fortune and misfortune by the air and the clouds.
If good fortune is to befall a house, clouds of five colors form in
the rooms, which alight on the grass and trees and turn into a colored
dew. This dew tastes as sweet as cider."

The Emperor asked whether he could obtain any of this dew. Sky