Some Chinese Ghosts. By Lafeadia Hearn. (Roberts Brothers, Boston, 17.8.A
.)—These Chinese legends show, in some instances, the curious resemblances which run through all the folk-lore of the world. The first story, for instance, " The Sonl of the Great Bell," suggests curious reminiscences. A bell-founder is commanded to cast a monster bell for the Emperor. He fails again and again. His daughter learns from a soothsayer that " the blood of a virgin must be mixed with the metals in their fusion," and leaps into the flood of metal. All that is loft of her is a little shoe which her serving-woman, who has tried to keep her back, still holds in her hand. Hence we have a carious mixture of Jephthah's daughter, Iphigenia, and the slipper of Empe- docles. " The Story of Ming-Y," a Les of a remote antiquity, who assumes again a human shape, has its parallels ; and so has the appearance of the wraith of Yen-Tchin-King. The style of the legends is flowery, but not exactly after the Chinese fashion.
Previous page
