Folktales and Legends of Weasel Possession

The weasel (yellow weasel) is a very common animal in the rural areas of Northeast China. The area around my grandmother's house is all mountains, so there are even more wild animals. My second aunt usually saw snakes, foxes, and the like as nothing unusual, and was not afraid of them. My second aunt's uncle had once caught two large snakes over a meter long and as thick as an arm while chopping firewood on the mountain. He brought them home, killed them, and stewed them. The whole family did not dare to eat, and only my second aunt kept her uncle company and ate her fill. But that night, my second aunt dreamed of the White Family Immortal enshrined at the neighbor Granny Liu's house. It grabbed my second aunt's ear and said she had done wrong, and punished her by not allowing her to eat meat for a year. The next day when my second aunt got up, her ears felt hot, and sure enough, within a year, she felt nauseated at the smell of meat, which delighted my eldest aunt and eldest uncle. After all, in the countryside there were not many times when people got to eat meat, and with one fewer person, my second aunt, to share it, everyone could eat a few more pieces. My second aunt ran to Granny Liu and the small temple at the head of the village to pray several times, and in the end accepted her fate and ate vegetarian food for a year. With not a bit of oil or fat in her stomach, her appetite increased greatly, and in the later months she could eat three bowls of dry sorghum rice per meal, and my eldest uncle kept saying it was not worth the loss.

But even so, my second aunt still did not learn her lesson. By rights, from childhood Granny Liu had instilled in her that wild immortals must not be provoked, and she herself had also fallen ill from curses several times, but whenever things came up, she forgot. One day, the few chickens my grandmother raised laid eggs, clucking for quite a while, and my second aunt suddenly felt diligent and ran to the chicken coop to collect eggs. One, two, haha, a total of five warm eggs. My second aunt carefully carried them back to the kitchen and hung them in the basket on the roof beam. This was my grandmother's little treasury; the usual money for oil and salt was exchanged from this. My second aunt also casually grabbed a handful of corn kernels and scattered them out to feed the chickens. Seeing a hen in the yard peck a few corn kernels and then flutter up into the chicken coop, she knew there was still one more egg to collect.

Having nothing to do, she took a stool and sat in the yard, teasing the chickens while waiting for the egg to be laid. After waiting a long time, she got bored, patted her bottom, took a net bag, and went out to catch horseflies (a local Northeast name for dragonflies). My second aunt's net bag counted as advanced equipment for catching dragonflies. Ordinary rural children just used willow twigs to swat them, and the ones caught that way were basically missing arms and legs and could only be used to feed chickens. There was also the method of using a Y-shaped tree fork, finding spider webs, and wrapping the spider webs onto the fork to stick dragonflies. This method was also quite good, but one had to get up early to look for spider webs, otherwise once the sun came out and dried them, the spider webs were no longer sticky, and even if stuck, the dragonfly might break free. The most advanced method was catching them by hand. This required patience and skill. I know an expert who could cup flying dragonflies out of the air with his hand, comparable to a martial arts master. My second aunt had not yet trained to that level. She went out with the net bag and in most of a day caught only three willow twigs' worth of dragonflies. Why say three willow twigs' worth? My second aunt at that time did not have plastic bags. When she caught a dragonfly, she would break off a slender willow twig, peel off the willow bark, leaving the smooth bare stick, and then pierce the caught dragonflies through the chest with the willow twig. When full, it could hold dozens. Then she used these dragonflies to feed the chickens, and the chickens all came joyfully scrambling to eat them.

My second aunt looked and saw that the chicken from earlier had already come out of the nest to eat, so it must have finished laying. She ran to the chicken coop to feel around. The nest was still warm, but there was no egg. My second aunt found it very strange, because if a chicken squats in the nest, it definitely lays an egg. And these chickens laid eggs quite regularly, one every other day. After thinking about it, she thought maybe one of my eldest uncle and the others had collected it, so she let the matter drop and went to help my grandmother fetch water. On the third day, she went to collect eggs again. Hey, another one was missing. Now my second aunt would not let it go. She was determined to get to the bottom of the missing eggs. She watched for several days in a row, and every few days an egg went missing. She asked my eldest aunt and eldest uncle and the others, and they all said they had not collected it. My eldest uncle said, "Maybe a rat stole it." This reminded my second aunt, and she decided to pull open the straw stack beside the chicken coop to see whether there was a rat hole underneath, and if so, to flood it. This was a game many rural children had played, pouring water into rat holes. After finding a rat hole, you looked nearby. Generally rats had two or three exits, but none opened too far away. You blocked the other holes, then poured water into the remaining hole. Basically after two buckets of water, the hole inside was full. You only had to guard it, and in a little while you could see the rats, dazed from being flooded, backing out bottom-first. Because the rats still thought they could plug the water with their bottoms. Of course, later during rat disasters, people no longer used this slightly entertaining method and directly poured boiling water. Although cruel, in order to protect the crops and grain, there was no being soft-hearted with this greatest pest.

My second aunt egged on my eldest uncle, and the two of them began moving the straw away armful by armful. Halfway through, suddenly my eldest uncle gave a shout and jumped back. My second aunt looked and saw a furry head exposed in the straw. It was much bigger than a rat, and was actually a yellow weasel. But you could tell it was a half-grown one. Its fur was sleek and glossy, and it stared with round bright eyes at the two people in front of it, not afraid at all. My second aunt took a stick and pushed aside the covering straw, and the little weasel still did not run. Squatting in the straw, it had hollowed out a pit, and under its bottom four or five eggs showed at the edges. This little yellow weasel was even holding them with its paws, baring its teeth at my second aunt and eldest uncle. My second aunt was not afraid. One swing of the stick and she hit it, making the weasel flee with a squeak. It did not even release a stink bomb. It was just that the force was too great, and the eggs underneath were also smashed, leaving yolk all over the straw stack. My eldest uncle hurried into the house to get a bowl, and painfully scooped the egg liquid into the bowl. In total they brought back more than half a bowl of egg liquid. It could still be eaten scrambled. My second aunt took the stick and patrolled around to see whether she could find where that yellow weasel had burrowed off to. In the end she did not find it.

At dinner in the evening, my second aunt and eldest uncle told this as a fresh piece of news. My grandmother laughed hard and said that since ancient times, when yellow weasels cultivated themselves, they all learned from humans, either learning to speak like humans or learning to do things like humans, and then getting people to praise them as being like humans, so that they could rise one level and cultivate toward a human body. But she had never heard of a yellow weasel learning from a chicken to hatch eggs. Could it be that this yellow weasel wanted to cultivate into a chicken? My grandfather also laughed, and then warned the children not to hit yellow weasels if they saw them again, because yellow weasels especially hold grudges. They are also petty-minded, and those with cultivation would take revenge. He also told a joke, saying that a few years earlier a wife, while fetching water, saw a yellow weasel lying at the edge of the well licking water from a stone pit. This wife knocked the yellow weasel unconscious with one carrying pole. But as a woman she did not dare to kill a living thing, so she picked it up by the tail and threw it by the roadside. She fetched water and went back, and saw that the yellow weasel, beaten dizzy as if drunk, was crawling shakily toward the field with all four paws moving on the same side. When she got home, she told it to her family as a joke, and the family did not take it seriously either. As a result, on the third day this wife started causing a scene at home. Sitting on the kang, she was like someone having a fit, hands on her hips, cursing herself: "Liu Laosan's wife, you shameless thing, I did not provoke you, why did you hit me with a carrying pole? The well water is not your family's either, why are your hands so itchy?" The more she cursed, the happier she got, and she even clearly told everything about this wife stealing persimmons from whose garden when she was a girl, and where she bathed. The neighbors were all drawn over to watch the excitement. It embarrassed her parents-in-law to death. But there was no way to make this wife shut up. This wife cursed herself from the morning, then began cursing her parents in the afternoon, and cursed until dark, until her mouth foamed. They went to invite someone who could lead spirits, but unfortunately that person had gone out to handle matters. This wife was parched and miserable. The yellow weasel possessing her became even more pleased and said, "You hit me, see whether you are thirsty now? You want to drink water? I will not let you get a drop in your mouth." This wife's husband was also a hothead, and hearing this he still did not believe in evil, so he poured his wife a mug of water. Just as he handed it over, this wife suddenly poured it over her own head, and dripping wet began twisting and dancing all over the yard, saying dizzy, oh dizzy. After tossing about for half the night, this immortal finally had vented its anger. It said, "Give me some good liquor." The family had no temper left and did whatever it said. This wife downed a bottle of shao dao liquor of fifty or sixty degrees in one go. Then it said: "From now on, when your family fetches water, the first bowl must be offered to me, otherwise I will come find you again." Then it left. This wife immediately fainted. After a whole day of tossing about, she was completely exhausted. The family poured water and pinched her philtrum to wake her, and there was not the slightest smell of liquor in this wife's mouth. After that, when this family fetched water, the first bowl was always poured out in the yard and not drunk. They had completely submitted.

This one swing of my second aunt's stick did not create a feud. Maybe that little yellow weasel did not have enough cultivation, and besides, it was in the wrong for stealing eggs. However, my second aunt still saw it in the garden every few days. It was still living nearby. But since it no longer stole eggs, my grandmother's family did not want to wipe it out. Sometimes you could see this little creature squatting under the cucumber trellis, reaching for cucumbers with its little paws. My second aunt would throw a small stone over, and it would scurrying away, then squat in the distance baring its teeth and calling out a challenge to my second aunt. My second aunt just treated it as raising a little pet. It was only later, when the family raised a dog, that this yellow weasel stopped appearing. It was actually a kind little animal.