Hello, welcome to Chinese Folk Tales.
I'm Lisa O'Sullivan and I've got an amazing story to tell you.
I hope you enjoy it.
All the best stories have something to teach us, and this story is all about nature and how, if we care for it, it will care for us.
When you look up into the sky, tell me, how many suns can you see?
Now, you might think that this is a very silly question indeed.
Of course, there is only one sun, you will say.
You can see it for yourself.
And I agree.
There is only one sun.
Now!
But that was not always the case.
Sometimes the things we take for granted haven't always been so, and what we have today, we may no longer have tomorrow.
Now let me warn you this story is quite sad in places, but don't worry, because it all ends up happily in the end.
One day, The second daughter of the ruler of heaven came down to earth.
She was very curious.
Here in the heavens, I'm so bored.
I have everything I need.
I can do anything I want.
I want to do something exciting.
I want to go down to earth to see how they live.
The ruler of heaven said, That's not a good idea.
It can be a very dangerous place.
No matter.
I'll go anyway.
And she did.
Now she was very beautiful.
And although she tried not to attract attention, people stared at her wherever she went.
All eyes would follow her as she walked down the little streets and lanes, if she wandered through a market or took a boat along the river or made an offering at a temple.
She found it very odd, but she didn't feel in any danger.
She actually liked being in the world of mortals.
One day She was sitting under a peach tree, enjoying the warmth of the ten suns.
That's right, I said ten!
The weather was making her thirsty, so she called out for water.
But her servants were all in heaven, so no one came.
She sat under the tree very thirsty indeed when she noticed a young man approaching her cautiously, shielding his eyes as he got near.
His name was Young.
Why are you doing that, she asked, to which he replied I am dazzled by your beauty, just as you have been dazzled by the light of our suns.
Oh, what a charmer, eh?
Well, you may have guessed that after the second daughter of the ruler of heaven had had a good drink of water, she fell madly in love and married young.
They lived happily for quite some time.
But eventually she decided she should take a trip back home to heaven.
Her family was far from pleased to see her and the ruler of heaven was very angry indeed.
You went down to earth when I told you not to.
Yes.
And you married a mortal.
Yes, I did.
And you are carrying his child.
Oh, okay, you're ahead of me on that one.
Without waiting to hear her excuse, the ruler of heaven banished her back to her beloved earth.
If you like it so much, he said, you shall become part of it.
And with all the powers you'd expect from the ruler of heaven.
He threw her to earth and covered her with the Wuli Hills.
Awkward?
Eventually her son was born.
She named him Orlang and he was allowed to live among the mortals.
But of course he was half God and as such had many magic powers.
In fact, he could perform eight times nine transformations.
That's a lot.
He could make himself invisible.
Or take the shape of grasses and flowers.
Of birds or beasts.
Or snakes and fishes. whenever he wished.
He also knew how to empty the seas of their water and how to move mountains.
Easy as pie!
Erlang spent his childhood playing games, emptying seas, moving mountains, pretending to be all the different birds and beasts.
But at the end of each day he felt lonely and he missed his mother.
Though he had great powers, he was scared of angering the ruler of heaven by rescuing her.
But one day he decided that enough was enough and he summed up all his magic to free her from the Wuli Hills.
How she wept with joy when at last she was free!
She jumped on his back and together they flew to safety before the ruler of heaven realised what had happened.
Oi, what happened to the Woolly Hills?
Now, because there were in those times ten suns, people got thirsty more quickly.
My son, I am so thirsty.
Please find me some water.
I'll wait here on this rock while you get some for me.
To be honest, that wasn't a good idea at all.
Urlang had to search high and low because, for some reason, many mountain streams and lakes were empty.
Eventually, he found a trickle of a mountain stream with crystal clear water, which he gathered in his cupped hands and flew back to give to his mother.
But she was gone.
He searched high and low, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Then he noticed something, a pile of skin and bones.
It was all that was left of his mother.
She had dried up while waiting for him in the heat of the ten suns.
She may have once been a daughter of heaven, But she was unable to save herself because, when she had been banished by her father, she lost all her own powers.
That's why she'd been trapped under the hills for so long, unable to release herself, and why the heat of the suns had been just too much.
Grief consumed our lung.
He wept and wept, then wept some more.
Before standing tall, he looked up to the skies, at the ten blazing suns and angrily he shook his fist.
You cruel suns, look what you have done.
You have dried up my mother till there's nothing left.
I will punish you for what you have done.
It's not our fault.
We're just doing what suns do.
It's not our fault.
And why should we worry?
There's little he can do.
In the sky, the ten suns raged, burning like fire.
Orlang called up all of his magic and reached out to grab two mountains.
Raising them as high as he could, he brought them crashing together, crushing one of the ten suns between them.
Just like that.
It was gone.
He did it again.
And again.
Nine times in total. until there was only one sun left in the sky.
Round and round the earth the sun ran, trying to escape the anger of Owarlung.
Eventually it decided that the sky was not the safest place to be.
If there were no clouds, it could be seen easily.
So down it came to earth and hid beneath the leaves of a pretty orange and red and pink plant called wingpod purslane.
And it worked for a while because, even though Oar Lung looked high and low, he couldn't see the last remaining sun anywhere.
It didn't help him that, without any sunlight, everywhere was so dark, But he was still so very angry and he still wanted to crush it, like the other nine suns between two mountains.
He sat on a rock to think.
Well, I don't know.
It must be here somewhere.
Then he heard a little voice.
If it's the sun you seek, I know exactly where you should pick.
He looked down. and saw a little worm wriggling at his feet.
Yes, I'm seeking the sun.
Do you know where it is?
I want to destroy it.
It's my strong belief you'll find the sun under yonder leaf.
Orlung was about to seize the sun and crush it when the voice of the ruler of heaven boomed in the sky.
Stop this at once.
I understand your anger, and I regret that your mother was dried up by the heat of the suns.
But you must understand, the sky, the air and the earth all need sunshine.
You must allow this one sun to survive, so that all created beings may live.
And reluctantly, O our lung, let the sun go.
And it rose once again into the sky.
You've made the right choice.
And because you rescued your mother, proving yourself to be a good son, I shall make you into a god and you can become my bodyguard in the highest heaven.
You shall rule over God.
Orlang accepted the commission and ascended into the heavens.
Out of gratitude to the plant that sheltered him from Orlang's wrath.
The sun blessed the winged pod purslane plant, making it so that it would never need to fear the hot sunshine again.
As for the treacherous worm, Orlang made it so that whenever the worm went out into the sunshine, it would shrivel up.
What a horrible punishment!
To this very day.
If you look under the leaves of the plant, you can see delicate white marks, the remains of the sunshine left from the time.
The sun sheltered underneath them.
And of course, you never see worms sunbathing.
And that is my story.
Sometimes the sun can be very hot indeed.
You need to be careful that you don't get burned.
But like every living creature, we need it to survive.
Like everything in nature, it's there for a reason.
We should look after it.
And our hard work and care will always be rewarded.
With that, we conclude this episode of Chinese Folk Tales.
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We'll see you next time.
Bye for now.
