APIFantasy | Myth and Folklore Anthology

Chinese Mythology - Folktale #3: Lady Meng Jiang

LADY MENG JIANG

One late afternoon, while Meng Jiang is attending to her parents' garden, she is startled by a young man who leaped over the fence. He apologizes for the intrusion and tells her that he is Wan Xiliang, who escaped from the First Emperor's draft as a laborer to build his walls. He's been on the run for so long, he is fatigued and hungry. Her family invites him to stay with them and eventually she falls in love with him as he does with her. Her four elderly parents are happy to discover their love for each other, so they have them get married.

Unknown to them, there is someone else in the village who secretly coveted Meng Jiang's beauty. He becomes jealous of her marriage and ends up going to the local authorities to report Wan Xiliang. On the day of their wedding, he is captured and sent to the construction site of the Great Wall in the far north.

Lady Meng Jiang waited day and night for her husband to return. Before she knows it, summer and fall passes and still no word from Xiliang. She begins to look for him. After overcoming many obstacles, she finally reaches the construction site only to fail to locate Xiliang among the laborers. She eventually learns that Xiliang died of hard work and has been buried in the wall. The news incapacitates her as she goes into a stupor. When she regains consciousness, she cried for three days at the foot of the Great Wall, drowning in her sorrow for her newly-wed husband.

All of a sudden, a section of the wall, that stretches to 800 miles, breaks loose and collapses with a big bang to reveal countless white bones, including her husband's, amidst the debris of dirt and stones.

•✦──────✧✦✧──────✦•

Her story has been adapted into two songs:

#1: A ballad that recounts when her husband died, his body was built into the wall and his soul wandered among the thorns and branches. However, he told his wife "a poor soldier under the earth will not ever forget you." When his wife heard this, she cried and didn't know where to look in the wall to find her husband's bones. The collapse of the wall later revealed so many bones, she couldn't tell which were her husband's. She bit her finger and drew blood, telling the bones that if it was her husband, the blood will sink deep into the bones. She asked the other bones if she could inform their families. The souls of the dead answered with the following:

Spring and winter for ever we lie amid the yellow sands.

Bring word to our wives that pine desolate in their bowers

Telling them to chant the Summons to the Soul and keep up the sacrifices.

#2: Twelve Flower Months of Lady Meng Jiang:

The first month is the month of plum blossoms

Every family hangs its red lantern

"My neighbor's husband comes home united with his loved ones,

Only my husband is far away building the Great Wall!

•✦──────✧✦✧──────✦•

Did you find this interesting? Please let us know in the comments!