The Four Dragons, a Chinese folk story

To follow up my last post about Asian dragons, here is a folk story featuring them. It not only describes the power and nobility of sacrificing for others, but also shows the importance of taking action for what you believe in.

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Long ago in China, there were no rivers or lakes in all the land. Only the Eastern Sea, where four dragons lived. They were the Long Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Pearl Dragon. One day, the four dragons soared up from the ocean to frolick among the clouds.

Suddenly the Pearl Dragon cried, “Come look at this!”

“What’s the matter?” the other three dragons asked, and they came to join their friend.

People had gathered on the earth below, burning incense and laying out offerings of fruit and cakes. When they got closer, the dragons heard that the people were praying desperately.

An old woman with a skinny child on her back knelt down and cried, “God in Heaven, please send rain! Our children have no rice to eat!”

When the four dragons looked around, they could see that it hadn’t rained in a very long time. The grass had turned yellow and crops were withering in fields that were cracked and dry.

“How sad they are,” said the Yellow Dragon. The Black Dragon said, “They will all die soon if no rain comes.” The Long Dragon told them, “We should go to the Jade Emperor and ask him to make it rain.” The Pearl Dragon also agreed, and so they all flew up to the Heavenly Palace, where the Jade Emperor lived.

The Jade Emperor was very busy, since he ruled over all of Heaven, Earth and Hell. He was angry when the four dragons burst into his palace. “What are you doing here, when you should be in the sea?”

“Your majesty,” said the Long Dragon, “please send rain to the Earth right away. The crops have shriveled and the people will starve!”

“Oh, very well. Return to your places, and I will send the rain tomorrow,” the Jade Emperor said. But he wasn’t really paying attention them, as he watched some fairies sing and dance.

“Thank you, o mighty Emperor.”

The dragons were happy and returned to the sea, but as soon as they were gone, the Emperor forgot his promise. Ten days passed, and still not a drop of rain fell on the land. The people were so hungry that they ate bark, or the roots of grass, or even clay.

The four dragons came to visit and were very upset by what they saw. “How sad that the Jade Emperor cares more for his own pleasure than for people who need him,” the Pearl Dragon said.

“If only there was a way that we could help them,” said the Black Dragon.

Then the Long Dragon looked back at the vast sea, and he said, “I have an idea.”

“Out with it!” cried the other dragons.

“There’s plenty of water in the sea, where we live,” said the Long Dragon. “If we spray it into the sky, surely it will fall down like rain. The people and the crops will be saved.”

“Very good!” said the others.

“But if the Jade Emperor finds out, he might be angry,” the Long Dragon warned. “He will think we took too much upon ourselves.”

“The people need us,” said the Yellow Dragon resolutely. “I will do anything to help them.”

“We will never regret it,” said the Black Dragon, and the Pearl Dragon said, “Let’s begin.”

So the four dragons scooped up water from the sea in their mouths, and they flew over the land, spraying it everywhere. Back and forth they went, until the clouds were dark and the sea water fell onto the earth as rain. The withered crops began to straighten up and grow green again.

People down below cheered and leapt with joy. “It’s raining, it’s raining! We are saved!”

But the sea god didn’t like them taking his water away. When he figured out what they had done, he went and told the Jade Emperor.

“How dare those four dragons give rain without my permission! ” The Jade Emperor was very angry. He sent his armies and all his heavenly generals to arrest them. The four dragons were out-numbered and couldn’t defend themselves. Soon they were dragged back to the heavenly palace.

“Bring me four mountains,” the Jade Emperor ordered the Mountain God. “Lay them upon these dragons so that they can never escape.”

The Mountain God used his magic to summon four mountains, and so the four dragons were imprisoned forever. But even then, they did not give up their love for the people. They turned themselves into rivers that flowed out of the mountains, through valleys and fields, and finally returned to the sea.

And this was the creation of China’s four great rivers — the Heilongjian (Black Dragon) in the north; the Huanghe (Yellow Dragon) in central China, the Changjiang (Yangtze, or Long River) farther south, and the Zhujiang (Pearl River) in the very far south.