赛太岁麒麟山獬豸洞 · 45
Leaf 45 of the pilgrimage · 金毛犼 The Gold-Haired Hou
Sai Tai Sui 赛太岁
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 金毛犼 “The Gold-Haired Hou”
The bodhisattva who comes to stop him puts the three bells back round his neck, and the book's line for it is that whoever unties a bell must ask whoever tied it on.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 68
The Queen Taken at Dragon Boat
端陽劫后Three years before, at the Dragon Boat season, the demon came in on a wind out of the west and took the queen of the Golden-Saint Palace off the pomegranate pavilion, threatening to eat the king, his ministers and the citizens as well.
- ch. 68
Diagnosed by Three Golden Threads
懸絲診脈The king's sickness was grief plus undigested rice dumplings. Wukong diagnosed it across three twenty-four-foot golden threads tied at the wrist and told the court their sovereign had a pair of birds out of flock.
- ch. 69
The Black Purge Balls
烏金丹He compounded a purge of rhubarb and de-oiled croton seed, rolled it in pot-soot, and had to order rain out of the East Sea to wash it down; the king emptied, and Zizhu had a working monarch again.
- ch. 70
The Herald Stripped of His Face
有來有去He killed the cave's vanguard at the first sortie, then killed the herald who came to announce the challenge — a yellow flag, a brass gong, and a name meaning he comes and goes — and wore the second dead man's face into the mountain.
- ch. 70
Three Bells Swapped for Hair
盜紫金鈴Put to sleep through the nostril by a drowsiness-worm, the maid Spring-Tendril left the bells unguarded; Wukong turned his hairs into lice and fleas till the demon stripped, and swapped three real bells for three of hair under a gold lock.
- ch. 71
The Bells That Would Not Answer
假名降犼The hair bells would not answer in the middle of a fifty-round draw. Certain his own had gone timid for want of their mate, the demon went inside for breakfast before fetching the real ones, and the queen had to hand them out.
- ch. 71
Home on a Grass Dragon
草龍回宮The queen came home riding a grass dragon, and the first thing the reunion cost the king was a hand stung by her poison barb; a Taoist in an old palm-fibre coat then had to come down and explain that he had been the coat.
結局 The ending
Guanyin comes down and douses the fire and sand with sweet dew from her willow; the beast had slipped her chain while the swineherd nodded. The cause is older: the crown prince shot the male of a peacock's two young at Phoenix-Breaking Slope, so the karma ran to three years and a sick king. Wukong is allowed no strokes, the bells go back on its neck, and the cave is killed to the last headman.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials