"The Pretty Little Calf.” Folktales of China, Wolfram Eberhard, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965, pp. 41-43.

Tale Summary

There was once an official who had three wives but no children although he longed for a son. One day, while leaving for a new post, his eldest wife said that she would offer him gold on his return, the second offered silver, and the youngest wife promised him a son. The other two women were very jealous of this, so when she gave birth to her son they captured her and took the baby, telling her that she had only birthed a lump of flesh. They tried to drown the boy but he refused to sink, so instead they fed him to an old water buffalo. When the official returned, he was given gold and silver by his eldest wives, but flew into a rage when he heard that his third wife had given birth to a lump of flesh. He ordered that from then on she must grind rice in the mill as a punishment. Soon the old water buffalo gave birth to a beautiful golden calf that everyone loved. He followed the official everywhere he went and they became bonded with each other. One day, the man placed a few dumplings on the calf’s plate, and told him that if he understood human speech he should take them to his mother. The calf pushed the plate along, but instead of going to the water buffalo he brought them to the youngest wife working in the rice mill, which made the other two wives realize that he was the child in disguise. The first wife pretended to be ill and demanded the liver of the calf to heal her, and the second wife feigned illness as well and declared that she would die without the skin of the calf. The man could not bear to hurt his animal, so he set him loose in the hills and bought another calf to please his wives by butchering. A young woman in Huang was looking for a suitor, and announced that she would throw a colored ball from her house and that whoever caught it would be her husband. When she did, it fell on the horn of the little calf. She was disappointed but had already made her promise, so she hung wedding robes on the calf and let him run in front of her, but he ran very fast and she soon fell behind him. She saw him jump into a large pool of water, but when she got there all she found was a handsome young man in a wedding robe. She asked about her calf, and he explained how he had been transformed into an animal but was human again. They went back to his parents’ house and the young man knocked and said that the official’s son had arrived. The father cried that he was mistaken, but was then overjoyed to hear the young man’s story. He ordered the older two wives to be slain, but they were spared at the request of his son, and his mother was welcomed back to her husband.