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sid_guardian2020-11-16 09:51 pm
fangirlishness) wrote in sid_guardian2020-11-16 09:51 pm
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Novel Mythology Info
I'm currently editing the Primordial Past chapters of the Guardian novel, and it mentions a ton of Chinese mythology that I had to research before I could properly edit them.
So I have a few links to share if anyone's interested. Most of them ended up as footnotes in the novel, too, but not all of them.
Creation myth:
Pangu the Creator splits chaos into yin/yang | darkness/light | Earth/Sky
Pangu dies and forms the Five Great Mountains
The Three Sovereigns, the first gods, are:
After the Three Sovereigns come the Five Emperors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sovereigns_and_Five_Emperors
Of the emperors, only the first one, the Yellow Emperor, is mentioned in the novel.
And then of course, there's Kunlun, who exists in a mythological and a real form.
The tilting world:
Gonggong, the Water God, lost a war and fled on his dragon, crashing into Mount Buzhou, which was one of the eight Heavenly Pillars holding up the sky.
That tore a hole into the sky, causing torrential rainfall, and a legendary flood.
Because the sky and earth are connected, destroying one of the pillars tilted the world. Mount Buzhou is in the northwest of China, and breaking its support, all of China tilted towards the southeast. Thus now all the rivers in China flow towards the southeast.
There is another legend according to which Nüwa repairs the broken pillars by replacing them with the four legs of the giant turtle Ao, but the legs aren't all the same length, and thus the same thing happens: the world tilts towards the southeast. Both legends are mentioned in the novel.
Related links:
Humans carry "Three Corpses" (more like three demons) inside them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Corpses
There are two classical works quoted in these chapters:
《三五历纪》(Sānwǔ Lìjì) "The Historical Annals of the Three and Five", which describe the story of Pangu. The book itself is lost, only a short section remains. I found two attempts at translation:
original: https://baike.baidu.com/item/三五历纪
english: https://aminoapps.com/c/chinese-school/page/blog/pan-gu-kai-tian-the-story-of-how-pangu-separated-the-sky-from-the-earth/aVeV_jKrU0ua6rnoq6j582xRN02ajqYdzMx
french: http://www.chinese-shortstories.com/Reperes_historiques_Breve_histoire_du_xiaoshuo_VII_La_mini_nouvelle.htm
《天问》 (Tiān Wèn) "Questions to Heaven" by 屈原 (Qū Yuán), a poem that asks a lot of philosophical questions, among them why the world tilted when a pillar was destroyed.
original: https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E6%96%A1%E7%BB%B4%E7%84%89%E7%B3%BB
english: http://bs.dayabook.com/poetry/chu-ci-songs-of-the-south/heavenly-questions
Other legends mentioned in these chapters:
Kuafu, who tried to catch the sun and on his death turned into a peach forest
Kun Peng, the fish who turned into a bird and flew away
So I have a few links to share if anyone's interested. Most of them ended up as footnotes in the novel, too, but not all of them.
Creation myth:
Pangu the Creator splits chaos into yin/yang | darkness/light | Earth/Sky
Pangu dies and forms the Five Great Mountains
The Three Sovereigns, the first gods, are:
- Nüwa, the Mother Goddess, who created humankind
- Fuxi, her brother, who invented the Eight Trigrams, symbols of natural order.
- Shennong (who is not really mentioned in much detail in the novel)
After the Three Sovereigns come the Five Emperors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sovereigns_and_Five_Emperors
Of the emperors, only the first one, the Yellow Emperor, is mentioned in the novel.
And then of course, there's Kunlun, who exists in a mythological and a real form.
The tilting world:
Gonggong, the Water God, lost a war and fled on his dragon, crashing into Mount Buzhou, which was one of the eight Heavenly Pillars holding up the sky.
That tore a hole into the sky, causing torrential rainfall, and a legendary flood.
Because the sky and earth are connected, destroying one of the pillars tilted the world. Mount Buzhou is in the northwest of China, and breaking its support, all of China tilted towards the southeast. Thus now all the rivers in China flow towards the southeast.
There is another legend according to which Nüwa repairs the broken pillars by replacing them with the four legs of the giant turtle Ao, but the legs aren't all the same length, and thus the same thing happens: the world tilts towards the southeast. Both legends are mentioned in the novel.
Related links:
Humans carry "Three Corpses" (more like three demons) inside them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Corpses
There are two classical works quoted in these chapters:
《三五历纪》(Sānwǔ Lìjì) "The Historical Annals of the Three and Five", which describe the story of Pangu. The book itself is lost, only a short section remains. I found two attempts at translation:
original: https://baike.baidu.com/item/三五历纪
english: https://aminoapps.com/c/chinese-school/page/blog/pan-gu-kai-tian-the-story-of-how-pangu-separated-the-sky-from-the-earth/aVeV_jKrU0ua6rnoq6j582xRN02ajqYdzMx
french: http://www.chinese-shortstories.com/Reperes_historiques_Breve_histoire_du_xiaoshuo_VII_La_mini_nouvelle.htm
《天问》 (Tiān Wèn) "Questions to Heaven" by 屈原 (Qū Yuán), a poem that asks a lot of philosophical questions, among them why the world tilted when a pillar was destroyed.
original: https://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E6%96%A1%E7%BB%B4%E7%84%89%E7%B3%BB
english: http://bs.dayabook.com/poetry/chu-ci-songs-of-the-south/heavenly-questions
Other legends mentioned in these chapters:
Kuafu, who tried to catch the sun and on his death turned into a peach forest
Kun Peng, the fish who turned into a bird and flew away
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