鼍龙黑水河神府 · 32
Leaf 32 of the pilgrimage · 鼉龍 Crocodile Dragon, Nephew of the West Sea
Tuo Long 鼍龙
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 鼉龍 “Crocodile Dragon, Nephew of the West Sea”
The only demon on the road who is somebody's relation: son of the dragon whose beheading started the journey, collected by his own uncle's house.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 43
The Oarless Boat
木舟無棹A boat came up the black water with nobody poling it and a boatman's voice, and the monk and Bajie were in it before Wukong had looked twice.
- ch. 43
A Storm Cloud Takes the Monk
炮雲卷僧Half-way over, a storm-cloud stood up and a thousand ranks of black wave went with it; when it cleared, the far bank was where the boat had been.
- ch. 43
The Old Man of the River
河神訴主The dispossessed river spirit rose out of the water in an old man's shape to say who had taken his house and turned his river into a larder.
- ch. 43
Taken Alive Out of the Water
摩昂擒鼉The monkey went to the Western Sea and came back with its eldest prince, who brought dragon soldiers and took the creature out of the water alive.
- ch. 43
Parting the Black Water
斷流送渡The river god then stopped the stream above and drew it off below, and the pilgrims walked across the dry bed of the Black Water with their luggage.
結局 The ending
He is not executed on his own bank. Bound in his true shape he is dragged back to the Western Sea to be locked up by his uncle's family, which the novel presents as relatives clearing up. His father had been beheaded in the tenth chapter for losing a rain bet, and this nephew is the last creature in the book still paying on that account.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials