Yeh-Shen

Part One · The Golden-Eyed Fish

Long, long ago in the south of China, there lived a chief named Wu, who had two wives, and each wife had a daughter. The daughter of the first wife was called Yeh-Shen. She was clever and gentle, and she could shape beautiful pots out of clay. But while Yeh-Shen was still small, her mother and then her father were gone, and she was left in the care of her stepmother.

The stepmother did not love Yeh-Shen at all. She gave her own daughter pretty clothes and all the best food, but she made Yeh-Shen gather firewood in the most dangerous forests and fetch water from the deepest pools. Yeh-Shen worked from dawn until dark, and she had only scraps to eat. She had no friends in the world, until one day she caught a little fish in a pool.

It was only as long as her finger, but it had bright red fins and shining golden eyes. Yeh-Shen carried it home in a bowl of water and fed it, and every day it grew bigger. Soon it was too big for the bowl, so she put it into a pond behind the house. Whenever Yeh-Shen came to the bank, the fish swam up and rested its head beside her, but it hid from everyone else.

Yeh-Shen saved part of her own food to feed the fish, and she told it all her troubles. But the stepmother noticed that Yeh-Shen kept going to the pond, and she grew suspicious. She went to the pond herself and waited, but the fish never came. So she thought of a trick. "You have worked so hard, my dear," she said to Yeh-Shen one morning. "You deserve a new coat."

She took Yeh-Shen's ragged old coat and sent her far away to fetch water from a distant spring. Then the stepmother put on the ragged coat herself and went down to the pond. Thinking it was Yeh-Shen, the fish swam up and lifted its head, and the stepmother caught it. That night she cooked the fish for supper, and she hid its bones under a heap of rubbish behind the house.

The next day, Yeh-Shen went to the pond and called, but the fish did not come. She searched and searched, and then she sat down by the water and wept. Suddenly, an old man with long loose hair and rough clothes came down from the sky. "Don't cry," he said gently. "Your stepmother has taken your fish, but its bones are full of magic. Find them, and keep them hidden in your room."

"Whenever you truly need something," the old man went on, "ask the bones, and your wish will come true." Yeh-Shen found the bones and hid them carefully. When she was hungry, she asked the bones for food, and there it was. She never asked for anything foolish or greedy, only for what she needed. The bones were also a way of remembering her only friend, and every evening she spoke to them softly.

Part Two · The Festival

Every spring, the people of the valley held a great festival, with music, dancing and lanterns. Young men and women came from far and wide in their best clothes, hoping to find husbands and wives. The stepmother took her own daughter to the festival, dressed in her finest clothes. But she ordered Yeh-Shen to stay at home and guard the fruit trees in the yard, so that nobody would steal the fruit.

When they had gone, Yeh-Shen went to the fish bones. "I wish I could go to the festival too," she whispered. At once she was dressed in a cloak of shimmering blue kingfisher feathers, and on her feet was a pair of tiny golden shoes. They were as light as air, and when she walked on stone, they made no sound at all. Yeh-Shen hurried off to the festival.

At the festival, everyone turned to look at the beautiful girl in the kingfisher cloak. But the stepsister stared at her for a long time. "She looks just like my sister," she whispered to her mother. Yeh-Shen saw them staring, and she was afraid they would know her. She turned and ran home as fast as she could, and as she ran, one golden shoe slipped off and was left behind on the road.

When the stepmother came home, she found Yeh-Shen asleep under a fruit tree in her ragged old clothes, hugging the other golden shoe in her arms. "It could not have been her after all," thought the stepmother, and she went to bed. Meanwhile, a villager found the lost golden shoe on the road. He knew it must be very valuable, so he took it away and sold it to a merchant.

Part Three · The Golden Shoe

The shoe passed from hand to hand until it reached the king of To Han, a powerful kingdom on an island across the sea. The king had never seen anything so lovely. The shoe was made of gold and was as light as a feather, and it was so small that it would not fit the foot of a single woman in his whole kingdom. "I must find the girl who wore this," he said.

The king ordered every woman in the land to try on the shoe, but it was always too small, even for the girls with the tiniest feet. At last he had the shoe placed in a little house beside the road, and he sent out word that whoever it belonged to could come and claim it. Then the king hid nearby with his men and waited to see who would come.

Late one night, a girl slipped quietly up to the little house, took the golden shoe and hurried away. The king's men followed her all the way home and knocked on the door. The stepmother and stepsister came out, but the king's men asked for the girl in the ragged clothes. Yeh-Shen came forward, and the king asked her to try on the shoe. It fit her foot perfectly.

Then Yeh-Shen went inside and came back wearing her cloak of kingfisher feathers and both golden shoes. She looked as beautiful as a heavenly being, and the king knew at once that she was the girl he had been searching for. He took Yeh-Shen and her magic fish bones back with him to his island, and she became his queen, and nobody ever made her work in the dark again.

As for the stepmother and her daughter, they had to stay behind in their village, grumbling, for the rest of their days. The king, though, became greedy. He wished on the fish bones for jade and pearls, more and more, until one day the bones would give no more. Then the king understood that the magic had only ever been meant for someone in need, and he buried the bones by the sea.