原文 Original Text

会稽剡县民袁相、根硕二人猎，经深山重岭甚多。见一群山羊，便逐之。经一石桥，甚狭而峻。羊过，二人亦随渡。向绝崖，崖正赤壁立，名曰赤城。上有水流下，广狭如匹布。剡人谓之瀑布。路径有山穴如门，豁然而过。既入，内甚平敞，草木皆香。有一小屋，二女子住其中。年皆十五六，容色甚美。见二人至，忻然云："早望汝来。"遂为室家。经二月，二人思归。女曰："君既欲归，且去。"各以一腕囊相赠，云慎勿开。二人归后，各开囊。一青鸟从中飞出，冲天而去。后不知所终。

Translation

Two men of Shanyin in Kuaiji — Yuan Xiang and Gen Shuo — were hunting in the deep mountains. They chased a herd of wild goats across a narrow stone bridge that spanned a terrifying gorge. The goats crossed, and so did they. Beyond the bridge rose a cliff of vivid red stone: this was Mount Chicheng, the Red Wall. Water cascaded down its face like bolts of unrolled silk — what the locals called the waterfall.

Near the path they found a cave opening like a doorway. They passed through and found themselves in a broad, level valley, fragrant with grasses and trees. In a small cottage lived two young women, both about fifteen or sixteen, both extraordinarily beautiful. When they saw the two hunters, they smiled and said: "We have been expecting you."

The men stayed. Two months passed — two months of happiness in the mountain paradise. But eventually, both men began to miss their homes. The women said: "Since you wish to leave, you may go." Each gave her man a small wrist-pouch as a parting gift, with one instruction: "Do not open it."

The men returned to the world. And of course, both opened their pouches. A blue bird flew out of each, soared upward, and vanished into the sky. The men were never seen again. No one knows what became of them.

🐦 The Blue Bird as Divine Messenger The blue bird (青鸟, qingniao) is one of the most potent symbols in Chinese mythology. It is the messenger of Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West, and serves as a link between the human and divine realms. When the blue bird escapes from the wrist-pouch, it signals that the connection between the men and the celestial women has been severed. The gift was real — but it could only be kept, never used.

Analysis 解读

This tale belongs to the "mountain paradise" (山中仙境) tradition — a man stumbles into a hidden realm inhabited by beautiful women, lives there in bliss, then returns to find that the gift of the encounter cannot be taken back to the ordinary world. The structure is identical to the Yamanashi legend of Urashima Taro in Japan, and to countless other "time-slip" tales across Asia.

What makes this version distinctive is the wrist-pouch. Unlike the forbidden box in the Urashima tale (which contains old age and regret), the pouch here contains a blue bird — a thing of beauty, not of horror. The men are not punished for opening it; they simply lose the connection. The bird's flight upward is a visual metaphor for the divine retreating from human grasp.

⛰️ Mount Chicheng 赤城山 Mount Chicheng (赤城, "Red Wall") is a real mountain in Zhejiang province, near modern Tiantai county. Its red sandstone cliffs give it its name. In Daoist geography, it is one of the "grotto-heavens" (洞天) — blessed realms hidden within the landscape of China. The story's setting is not fantastical in the Chinese imagination; it is simply a place where the boundary between worlds happens to be thin.

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