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Myths and Legends of China
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509 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1915
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693 people want to read
About the author
E.T.C. Werner
25 books3 followersEdward Theodore Chalmers Werner (1864–1954) was a noted British diplomat in Qing Dynasty China and sinologist specialising in superstition, myths and magic in China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._T._C...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._T._C...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
September 21, 2011
Somewhat amusing as a glimpse into the Western view of the Chinese in the late 1800s through the 20s, but almost worthless as a source of Chinese mythology. The stories are mentioned in passing with little storytelling talent and the old-school racism gets old after a while.
My advice: find another book if you actually care about the myths, or want an accurate depiction of how they may have been told.
My advice: find another book if you actually care about the myths, or want an accurate depiction of how they may have been told.
June 15, 2015
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME READING THIS BOOK! If you've already downloaded it because it was free, there was a reason it was free and isn't being updated for sale of future editions. Save yourself the hours of your life you would have spent reading it and go watch paint dry. That would be time better spent than reading this book.
One of the most uninformative, boring books I've ever read. I agree with other comments that it was a historical textbook about Chinese folklore. It didn't tell many of the stories in themselves as much as it told about the stories. I live and work in country so I try to brush up on culture, old and new. This book did not tell me anything I didn't either already know or that was actually useful. Once again, delete your book if its an ebook or burn your copy if it is a physical book. The world would be a better place.
One of the most uninformative, boring books I've ever read. I agree with other comments that it was a historical textbook about Chinese folklore. It didn't tell many of the stories in themselves as much as it told about the stories. I live and work in country so I try to brush up on culture, old and new. This book did not tell me anything I didn't either already know or that was actually useful. Once again, delete your book if its an ebook or burn your copy if it is a physical book. The world would be a better place.
August 6, 2019
This is a good collection of folktakes and myths from China, and a decent introduction for anyone interested in getting an overview of Chinese mythology. There are a couple points readers should be wary of however. First, it's a bit outdated. It was written in 1922, and much of our understanding of Chinese civilization and mythology has changed since then, very dramatically in some areas. Secondly, and more importantly, beware the author's post Victorian worldview! It was on gross display in a couple of sections of this book and was very difficult to read. Ick. Luckily it wasn't too prominent, and didn't spoil the wonderful and fantastical Chinese mythological tales that make up the bulk of this book.
3.5/5 Stars
3.5/5 Stars
January 24, 2011
Well, its free.
This is a passable walk-through of Chinese history. It's slightly more entertaining, but a lot less informative, than blowing through the compilation of Wikipedia entries on the subject.
The style is very much 19th-century English Gentleman, more so than Lafcadio Hearn on Japan. It gets old pretty quickly.
This is a passable walk-through of Chinese history. It's slightly more entertaining, but a lot less informative, than blowing through the compilation of Wikipedia entries on the subject.
The style is very much 19th-century English Gentleman, more so than Lafcadio Hearn on Japan. It gets old pretty quickly.
March 4, 2011
Frankly I didn't finished the book. I was shocked at how racist and stereotypical the book was. the chinese were described as sly and lacking creativity.
July 2, 2015
Too much commentary, not enough myth. Was quite disappointed. Full disclosure-- I only made it 1/4 through, but still, it's a textbook more than a collection of legends. And not a good textbook.
May 22, 2020
DNF. The only possible utility I could see for this book is if you wanted to tell a story set in 1920's China and needed a reference book to show you what Western racism looked like at the time.
June 14, 2020
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March 13, 2020
Interesting book
I got this book because of two reasons: firstly, I’m in Chinese major, looking for some old books by the time the legend still remain without much restriction or forgotten by modern industry or new political problem. Secondly, I read the whole book about Pamela death and his father in my research then.
Some personal comments by author would not be friendly enough in racism but his work was honestly professional to look for.
I got this book because of two reasons: firstly, I’m in Chinese major, looking for some old books by the time the legend still remain without much restriction or forgotten by modern industry or new political problem. Secondly, I read the whole book about Pamela death and his father in my research then.
Some personal comments by author would not be friendly enough in racism but his work was honestly professional to look for.
November 23, 2020
I thought I knew very little about Chinese folklore, and that it was somehow not related or a precursor to the triad of religions - Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism - but learned is actually derived largely from the latter two. This is an old book and relatively heavy on the orientalism, but I enjoyed reading about the cast of gods and immortals who comprise Chinese folklore.
January 30, 2013
The title of the book is misleading. It reads more like a history book with a sociologists point of view. I had download it (for free) to read to my son and was disappointed. Hoping it was full of actual myth and legends.
February 16, 2019
This book is more descriptive than storytelling with a historical placement, often referring to dynasties and stating dates. It might feel a bit dated, but still contains some great myths and legends. Good for expanding your imagination.
March 19, 2022
Racist? Check.
Dry? Check.
Boring? Check.
Messy? Check.
As another reviewer noted, if you wanted to know how racist a white person viewed Chinese myths and legends in 1922, this is it.
Dry? Check.
Boring? Check.
Messy? Check.
As another reviewer noted, if you wanted to know how racist a white person viewed Chinese myths and legends in 1922, this is it.
March 6, 2021
Condescending, disorganised, poorly told, insipid and ahistorical. This is the work of a mediocre pseudo-intellectual.
I want to elaborate a little here, lest ppl think I'm some sort of w0ketard with an axe to grind against a writer in the late colonial milieu. Let me be clear that even measured against those standards, this is a lazy, uninspired piece of trash writing.
The Chinese stories rendered here are organised haphazardly, and told in a bland, overly-descriptive manner that make the myths appear almost as bland and as overly-descriptive as Werner himself.
I lay the quality of these stories entirely on the author himself. As a Chinese person I grew up with far livelier renderings of these stories in Chinese media, so it is certainly not an issue of the Chinese themselves, as Werner occasionally likes to imply in this text.
It isn't strictly a translational issue either. David Kherdian's entertaining English translation of Monkey is far superior to the vacuous, anaemic rendering of Wukong's exploits in this text. English writers can, and do, translate Chinese stories well --but perhaps only if they don't come at the task with the snide condescension Werner keeps applying in this book.
I dont know, is he trying to be scholarly for his time here, by trying to put on some sort of anthropological lens? Because the attempt is clumsy, cack-handed and ahistorical. And other writers "of his time" accord their subjects and subject matter with far greater respect. Werner likes to lump the long span of Chinese history into a indistinguishable mass, then make lazy, sweeping statements about "the Chinese". His frequent, incoherently moralistic asides about this or that story, in this or that character, also do him no favours.
Finally, for all his characterising of the Chinese as cruel, unintellectual and dishonest, Werner is strikingly silent on the British role in the Chinese consumption of opium when he tries early on to attempt a "sociology of the Chinese". Crass sophistry for someone trying to ape such an intellectual act.
Nor is this very Christian man above calling the flood myths of the Chinese a "silly" story. I would have expected less cognitive dissonance from a self-styled representative of ostensibly the most civilised race and genteel religion in the world.
Finally, Werner offers no bibliography, not even a single Chinese source for his collection. Nor even a brief discussion of his methodology. Is this a norm for the period? No, it is not. We are talking early twentieth century, not the Western Dark Ages. This writer wants to speak like a Sinologist scholar but cannot even bothered to reflect that in his actions.
Werner takes the stories of the Chinese, makes sneering asides about them to profit off them, and then cannot even be bothered to repay the intellectual debt. He cannot be bothered to name ONE Chinese person from which he heard or read these stories from. Did these things come to his Great White Brain in a Dream? Or did he somehow Rationalise it through the Raw Power of his His Massive Cranial Dimensions? How can anything so laggardly and insultingly written qualify under the umbrella of "Social Sciences"? What is this appalling, plagiaristic silence, if not cultural imperialism?
To conclude, I would have been willing to excuse this writer's crass, racist ideas if the rest of his scholarship here were more robust, and honest. Sometimes we can't account for how moral standards change over decades.
But there should at least be some logical consistency, academic integrity, and precision to the truth-claims we make. Some clear-eyed honesty if we are going to make such sweeping civilisational claims - though of course maybe if you're making sweeping civilisational claims you're probably not very interested in precision or clear-eyed honesty.
Instead, Werner uses Chinese folklore as a soapbox for his civilisational bigotry, and a mask for his academic dishonesty and his ahistorical, pseudoscientific 'methods'. This is the work of a writer with scholarly pretensions, but with none of the spine and integrity required of an ACTUAL scholar. The biggest myth and legend here is Werner's authority and respectability to speak for the Chinese and their stories.
I want to elaborate a little here, lest ppl think I'm some sort of w0ketard with an axe to grind against a writer in the late colonial milieu. Let me be clear that even measured against those standards, this is a lazy, uninspired piece of trash writing.
The Chinese stories rendered here are organised haphazardly, and told in a bland, overly-descriptive manner that make the myths appear almost as bland and as overly-descriptive as Werner himself.
I lay the quality of these stories entirely on the author himself. As a Chinese person I grew up with far livelier renderings of these stories in Chinese media, so it is certainly not an issue of the Chinese themselves, as Werner occasionally likes to imply in this text.
It isn't strictly a translational issue either. David Kherdian's entertaining English translation of Monkey is far superior to the vacuous, anaemic rendering of Wukong's exploits in this text. English writers can, and do, translate Chinese stories well --but perhaps only if they don't come at the task with the snide condescension Werner keeps applying in this book.
I dont know, is he trying to be scholarly for his time here, by trying to put on some sort of anthropological lens? Because the attempt is clumsy, cack-handed and ahistorical. And other writers "of his time" accord their subjects and subject matter with far greater respect. Werner likes to lump the long span of Chinese history into a indistinguishable mass, then make lazy, sweeping statements about "the Chinese". His frequent, incoherently moralistic asides about this or that story, in this or that character, also do him no favours.
Finally, for all his characterising of the Chinese as cruel, unintellectual and dishonest, Werner is strikingly silent on the British role in the Chinese consumption of opium when he tries early on to attempt a "sociology of the Chinese". Crass sophistry for someone trying to ape such an intellectual act.
Nor is this very Christian man above calling the flood myths of the Chinese a "silly" story. I would have expected less cognitive dissonance from a self-styled representative of ostensibly the most civilised race and genteel religion in the world.
Finally, Werner offers no bibliography, not even a single Chinese source for his collection. Nor even a brief discussion of his methodology. Is this a norm for the period? No, it is not. We are talking early twentieth century, not the Western Dark Ages. This writer wants to speak like a Sinologist scholar but cannot even bothered to reflect that in his actions.
Werner takes the stories of the Chinese, makes sneering asides about them to profit off them, and then cannot even be bothered to repay the intellectual debt. He cannot be bothered to name ONE Chinese person from which he heard or read these stories from. Did these things come to his Great White Brain in a Dream? Or did he somehow Rationalise it through the Raw Power of his His Massive Cranial Dimensions? How can anything so laggardly and insultingly written qualify under the umbrella of "Social Sciences"? What is this appalling, plagiaristic silence, if not cultural imperialism?
To conclude, I would have been willing to excuse this writer's crass, racist ideas if the rest of his scholarship here were more robust, and honest. Sometimes we can't account for how moral standards change over decades.
But there should at least be some logical consistency, academic integrity, and precision to the truth-claims we make. Some clear-eyed honesty if we are going to make such sweeping civilisational claims - though of course maybe if you're making sweeping civilisational claims you're probably not very interested in precision or clear-eyed honesty.
Instead, Werner uses Chinese folklore as a soapbox for his civilisational bigotry, and a mask for his academic dishonesty and his ahistorical, pseudoscientific 'methods'. This is the work of a writer with scholarly pretensions, but with none of the spine and integrity required of an ACTUAL scholar. The biggest myth and legend here is Werner's authority and respectability to speak for the Chinese and their stories.
August 4, 2025
This book was all over the place. The author was not skilled in either storytelling or organization of his thoughts. Chapters range in size from 6 pages long to over 100 pages. The first few chapters are dubious commentary on Chinese society which leave out information that would have been helpful, such as a chronological listing of dynasties and why people had like 20 names.
That being said, I am glad i stuck it out because there was a lot of fun lore. Werner's dry storytelling may have actually made some of these tales funnier. The chapter on the 8 immortals was wild.
I also found his conclusion on the impact of philosophy on Chinese mythology to be fascinating and likely correct.
I will definitely keep this one in my collection, but also seek out other resources that are more skillfully compiled.
That being said, I am glad i stuck it out because there was a lot of fun lore. Werner's dry storytelling may have actually made some of these tales funnier. The chapter on the 8 immortals was wild.
I also found his conclusion on the impact of philosophy on Chinese mythology to be fascinating and likely correct.
I will definitely keep this one in my collection, but also seek out other resources that are more skillfully compiled.
December 31, 2025
As someone who has lived in China a while, folklore is one of my favourite aspects of the country. So there was no hesitation when I splurged for the dust covered 1924 copy in a book store. Boy, was I disappointed. It’s books like these where I wish I could give 0 stars.
I’m the so called Myths & Legends are just mentioned in passing. It’s more about history. And while I appreciate the history given about the folklore, context ist clearly missing. Also, I don’t want to be THAT person but certain sections felt like classic Sinophobia. If anything, the book just gave a view into how certain countries view or viewed China.
I like to mention positives though as well: I do like the pictures and while this is specific to the copy of my book - I love how used but in good condition it looks. It’ll just be part of my decor I guess.
I’m the so called Myths & Legends are just mentioned in passing. It’s more about history. And while I appreciate the history given about the folklore, context ist clearly missing. Also, I don’t want to be THAT person but certain sections felt like classic Sinophobia. If anything, the book just gave a view into how certain countries view or viewed China.
I like to mention positives though as well: I do like the pictures and while this is specific to the copy of my book - I love how used but in good condition it looks. It’ll just be part of my decor I guess.
May 3, 2021
Of course it’d be a solid one star from me. If Goodreads had a below zero rating possible you’d see me hanging out there. I do not think any serious scholar of Chinese history and culture would take this as a legitimate source (unless if it’s to write about Western attitudes towards China during Mr Werner’s lifetime), much less distribute printed excerpts from this book to Western-educated Chinese people as part of an “education” program in a local church. Yep I kid you not this actually happened. Needless to say that that had a profound impact on my personal resolve to become as serious of a scholar on Chinese history as I could be.
April 15, 2024
Starts out weak but when it gets into the actual stories it gets better. One difficulty is that the translation system the author uses makes most names have a bunch of punctuation marks which can make names a little difficult to parse through
July 31, 2017
Not the most well written or engaging survey of Chinese mythology, but a good reference.
March 5, 2019
Kind of an odd one. Just a selection of myths loosely organized by topic. I did learn a lot and found it pretty interesting.
March 14, 2019
Very interesting
Great format
Can be chinked into useable information for children
Loved it
Great format
Can be chinked into useable information for children
Loved it
September 22, 2022
So racist I couldn't put up with it long enough to actually read a whole legend. There has to be a better book than this in the subject and I will find it.
October 18, 2024
A perfect, concise anthology of most of the important Chinese Myths! Would have liked extended treatment of the major festivals, but the Mooncakes and Hungry Ghosts one makes up for it nicely
July 11, 2018
Quite a frustrating work to read about a topic that, admittedly, is not the easiest to encapsulate even in a book of roughly 400 pages. First published in the early 1920s, the edition I read was a well done facsimile of this original, complete with highly attractive colour plates. The problem I had throughout was Werner's approach. Either he could have merely acted as editor, and collected various legends and folktales which exist in translation. Or, he could have acted as a secondary scholar, recounting the history of the various myths which have developed through the several millennia of Chinese history.
Unfortunately, he seems to have decided to fall somewhat in the middle of these two extremes. Commencing with a long chapter on Chinese history, the book begins as a scholarly history. Then, he begins to recount various myths and legends, but rather than simply introduce each of these with an explanatory paragraph or two, he interweaves the fanciful story in with his historical analysis. One is often at a loss to tell whether it is the fifth- or twentieth-century narrator who is speaking, and whether we are learning of the actual legend or his interpretation of it.
Then, there is is his peculiar principle of organization. Rather than chronological or regional, it is based on common subject matter: i.e., myths with stars, myths with water, myths with fire etc. One's sense of either the development of myths throughout the different dynasties or of the variations in myths which exist in different parts of China is lost by such approach.
I found myself remembering my frustration with Ovid's Metamorphoses while working my way through the roughly two or three hundred legends and myths Werner recounts; is this story over? has a new story begun? if so, what is the connection between the two? Brief sectional titles are used throughout the book, but they are only the briefest of headlines designed to capture the eye, not inform the reader as to either the temporal or spatial characteristic of the following story.
Werner seems to have been painstakingly accurate with respect to the naming of characters, but this creates more problems than it solves. For instance, Mu Kung, or Tung Weng Kung, was also called I Chung Ming and Yu Huang Chung, the Prince Yu Huang. Presumably, these five names all refer to the same person. And two pages later, he's gone, to replaced by another multiply-named character.
Only in about fifty to a hundred pages in the second half of the book does this maddening combination of over-specificity and broad generalization seem to fall away so that real stories can emerge. The poignant story of Miao Shan, whose noble father wants her to marry a military or government official, but who wants only to retire to a a monastery and become a nun seeking 'Perfection' is very well told, involving at it does a murder, a trip to hell, the turning of Hell into a paradise through devout prayers and the eventual redemption and elevation of the heroine and her family.
Colourful characters do abound throughout this section, including Tou Mu, the Goddess of the North Star. She is seated on a lotus throne, has three eyes. eighteen arms, holds a bow, a spear, a sword, a flag, a dragon's head, a pagoda, five chariots, a sun's disk and a moon's disk. She has control of the Books of Life and Death and her devotees abstain from animal food on the 3rd and 27th of each month.
There is also a fifty page summary of the hundred-chapter long Journey to the West, which I read a couple of years ago, but which Werner helped me to understand the symbolism of much more deeply. (pilgrim = conscience; monkey = human nature; monkey's rod = doctrine; pig fairy = coarse human passions; priest = human nature)
Not bad, but certainly could have been much, much better.
Unfortunately, he seems to have decided to fall somewhat in the middle of these two extremes. Commencing with a long chapter on Chinese history, the book begins as a scholarly history. Then, he begins to recount various myths and legends, but rather than simply introduce each of these with an explanatory paragraph or two, he interweaves the fanciful story in with his historical analysis. One is often at a loss to tell whether it is the fifth- or twentieth-century narrator who is speaking, and whether we are learning of the actual legend or his interpretation of it.
Then, there is is his peculiar principle of organization. Rather than chronological or regional, it is based on common subject matter: i.e., myths with stars, myths with water, myths with fire etc. One's sense of either the development of myths throughout the different dynasties or of the variations in myths which exist in different parts of China is lost by such approach.
I found myself remembering my frustration with Ovid's Metamorphoses while working my way through the roughly two or three hundred legends and myths Werner recounts; is this story over? has a new story begun? if so, what is the connection between the two? Brief sectional titles are used throughout the book, but they are only the briefest of headlines designed to capture the eye, not inform the reader as to either the temporal or spatial characteristic of the following story.
Werner seems to have been painstakingly accurate with respect to the naming of characters, but this creates more problems than it solves. For instance, Mu Kung, or Tung Weng Kung, was also called I Chung Ming and Yu Huang Chung, the Prince Yu Huang. Presumably, these five names all refer to the same person. And two pages later, he's gone, to replaced by another multiply-named character.
Only in about fifty to a hundred pages in the second half of the book does this maddening combination of over-specificity and broad generalization seem to fall away so that real stories can emerge. The poignant story of Miao Shan, whose noble father wants her to marry a military or government official, but who wants only to retire to a a monastery and become a nun seeking 'Perfection' is very well told, involving at it does a murder, a trip to hell, the turning of Hell into a paradise through devout prayers and the eventual redemption and elevation of the heroine and her family.
Colourful characters do abound throughout this section, including Tou Mu, the Goddess of the North Star. She is seated on a lotus throne, has three eyes. eighteen arms, holds a bow, a spear, a sword, a flag, a dragon's head, a pagoda, five chariots, a sun's disk and a moon's disk. She has control of the Books of Life and Death and her devotees abstain from animal food on the 3rd and 27th of each month.
There is also a fifty page summary of the hundred-chapter long Journey to the West, which I read a couple of years ago, but which Werner helped me to understand the symbolism of much more deeply. (pilgrim = conscience; monkey = human nature; monkey's rod = doctrine; pig fairy = coarse human passions; priest = human nature)
Not bad, but certainly could have been much, much better.
February 16, 2017
I LOVED these! How interesting! Some were humorous, some were simply odd. I loved them all.
March 22, 2010
I still cannot say I have figured out exactly how to rate this book. So here I have given it a ~slightly~ more-than-average grade.
On one hand I find the author managed to research into some obscured myths that even most Chinese households do not know about, and yet on the other hand, he got so many things wrong to the point of absurdity. Brushing aside the rather condescending tone of his examination (excusable, as many aspects of Chinese religious practices are indeed questionable), we have a mixed bag of rare insights thrown in with confused observations. The first few chapters are worth a read, even if not everything is correct, and do offer some good academic points about the Chinese culture. If nothing else, this work does say something about the effort put in...
On one hand I find the author managed to research into some obscured myths that even most Chinese households do not know about, and yet on the other hand, he got so many things wrong to the point of absurdity. Brushing aside the rather condescending tone of his examination (excusable, as many aspects of Chinese religious practices are indeed questionable), we have a mixed bag of rare insights thrown in with confused observations. The first few chapters are worth a read, even if not everything is correct, and do offer some good academic points about the Chinese culture. If nothing else, this work does say something about the effort put in...
July 21, 2016
I liked it but it wasnt anything special. Information -about- chinese mythology, and the sociological/historical info about China was more interesting to read than the actual myths. They were killed by the author's phrasing of them in the most unflourished, matter of fact, early 20th century english tone ever. They read like a recitation of a list of facts. Nevertheless the Fox legends, the legends of the 8 immortals, and some of the Monkey tales were awesome enough that I'd like to get real (aka interesting to read) versions and give it another go.
3 stars is generous here.
3 stars is generous here.
March 28, 2013
It's difficult to decide how to rate this book, especially after reading Paul French's 'Midnight in Peking' and discovering the author was a superhuman figure who not only spent virtually his entire working life in China, but was capable of navigating the Shanghai underworld, pulling off midnight B&E jobs on brothels, and surviving a Japanese internment camp - all while in his seventies. The book is still a decent survey, but time has passed it by and there are much better and more recent studies out there, notably Eberhard's 'Chinese Folktales'.
May 25, 2016
While originally thrown off by the blatant racism in the opening chapter, I was able to forgive it somewhat when I realized the book was originally published in 1922. Myths are barebones and difficult to tie together, but I'm also willing to forgive this somewhat if what Werner says about this being one of the first publishing of Chinese Mythology is true.
Basically, not a bad book, but only if you look at it through the lense of the time it was published in.
Basically, not a bad book, but only if you look at it through the lense of the time it was published in.
February 21, 2011
Good historical look at China through myths and legends. Difficult to keep track of characters as they are referenced alternately by up to five given names as well as titles added to names which identify abilities or geographical origin. Interesting to contrast with Western religion or myths.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews