“Eat this cake,” he said; “it will protect you from the heat of the solar hearth.  And by wearing this talisman you will be able at will to visit the lunar palace of Heng O; but the converse does not hold good, for your wife will not have access to the solar palace.”  This is why the light of the moon has its birth in the sun, and decreases in proportion to its distance from the sun, the moon being light or dark according as the sun comes and goes.  Shen I ate the sarsaparilla cake, attached the talisman to his body, thanked the god, and prepared to leave.  Tung Wang Kung said to him:  “The sun rises and sets at fixed times; you do not yet know the laws of day and night; it is absolutely necessary for you to take with you the bird with the golden plumage, which will sing to advise you of the exact times of the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun.”  “Where is this bird to be found?” asked Shen I.  “It is the one you hear calling Ia!  Ia! It is the ancestor of the spirituality of the yang, or male, principle.  Through having eaten the active principle of the sun, it has assumed the form of a three-footed bird, which perches on the fu-sang tree [a tree said to grow at the place where the sun rises] in the middle of the Eastern Sea.  This tree is several thousands of feet in height and of gigantic girth.  The bird keeps near the source of the dawn, and when it sees the sun taking his morning bath gives vent to a cry that shakes the heavens and wakes up all humanity.  That is why I ordered Ling Chen-tzu to put it in a cage on T’ao-hua Shan, Peach-blossom Hill; since then its cries have been less harsh.  Go and fetch it and take it to the Palace of the Sun.  Then you will understand all the laws of the daily movements.”  He then wrote a charm which Shen I was to present to Ling Chen-tzu to make him open the cage and hand the golden bird over to him.

The charm worked, and Ling Chen-tzu opened the cage.  The bird of golden plumage had a sonorous voice and majestic bearing.  “This bird,” he said, “lays eggs which hatch out nestlings with red combs, who answer him every morning when he starts crowing.  He is usually called the cock of heaven, and the cocks down here which crow morning and evening are descendants of the celestial cock.”

Shen I visits the Moon

Shen I, riding on the celestial bird, traversed the air and reached the disk of the sun just at mid-day.  He found himself carried into the centre of an immense horizon, as large as the earth, and did not perceive the rotatory movement of the sun.  He then enjoyed complete happiness without care or trouble.  The thought of the happy hours passed with his wife Heng O, however, came back to memory, and, borne on a ray of sunlight, he flew to the moon.  He saw the cinnamon-trees and the frozen-looking horizon.  Going to a secluded spot, he found Heng O there all alone.  On seeing him she was about to run away, but Shen I took her