Wen and the Princess Traditional Story

Traditional stories are an important part of Chinese culture. This is a version of the traditional story Wen and the Princess in English. If you have already read the story here on Mandarama you might want to read the long version. If you have not read it yet in Chinese then you can choose WEN AND THE PRINCESS - choice B.

Back in the days of the great Tang Dynasty of China, the Emperor had his palace in the capital city of Changan (modern Xi’an). Changan was a fabulous place, a huge walled city divided into many different areas with the Imperial Palace at the north. It was always busy with traders and merchants buying and selling magnificent silks and spices and fruits from all along The Silk Road that led out across the deserts to distant lands. You could buy anything you could possibly want there, and the Emperor and his Court lived in great splendour.

One of the many secretaries in the Imperial Court was a young scholar called Wen, who came originally from a small village on the shores of Lake Dong Ting, many hundreds of miles away in Hunan Province. Wen had caught the attention of the Emperor, when he was making a visit to the area, because of his great skill at writing poetry and the beauty of the Chinese characters he wrote with his calligraphy brush. The Emperor took Wen back with him to Changan and gave him a job in his household. Grateful as Wen was to the Emperor, in his heart he always wished to return to his home village.

One day, after Wen had written a particularly beautiful poem for the Emperor, the Emperor asked him how he could be rewarded for it. Wen replied that, although he never wished to stop serving the Emperor, his dearest wish was to return home. The Emperor thought for a moment and then said: “I think I have a solution to this; the general in charge of the armies around Lake Dong Ting needs a new secretary, and I would like to send someone I can trust to keep an eye on him. You shall have the job.” Some weeks later, when all the proper letters had been written and arrangements made, Wen set off for the army headquarters at Dong Ting Lake. The general greeted him warmly as the Emperor’s chosen official and made arrangements for several days of celebrations.

On the second day, the general and his staff took Wen out on a boat on the Lake. As they were sailing calmly across the water, admiring the beautiful views, the general spotted a dolphin gliding through the water quite close to their boat. Now the general was very fond of all forms of hunting and fishing and immediately called for his bow and arrows, which were never far from him. He tied a strong silk cord to one of his arrows, took careful aim at the dolphin and fired. The arrow sped straight and true across the water and hit the dolphin in the side. The crew of the boat hauled on the silk cord and pulled the dolphin up into the boat. When they looked, they saw that the dolphin was still alive, but badly wounded, and, to their amazement, they also saw a fine silver carp clinging tightly onto one of the dolphins fins with its mouth. As the general and all the crew crowded round pointing and laughing, Wen took pity on the two creatures as they lay there; it seemed to him they were looking up at him and begging for mercy. Anxious to keep the Emperor’s man happy, the general agreed to Wen’s request that the dolphin and its companion should be put back in the lake. But first, Wen carefully removed the arrow from the dolphins side and bandaged it as well as he could with strips of silk. As the two swam away from the boat, they seemed to look back gratefully at Wen, but neither he nor the general thought any more of the affair.

Some weeks later, Wen was on a small boat crossing the lake to visit his parents who lived on the other side. Almost from nowhere a great storm blew up and in an instant Wen boat was overturned. Wen was convinced he was going to drown as he was thrown into the waters of the lake, but just as he was giving up hope completely, he saw a thick bamboo pole that must have come loose from the boat floating in the water near to him. He seized hold of it and wrapped his arms around it, clinging on for dear life. He lost track of how long he floated like this as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

When at last he came to properly he found that he had been washed up on the shore of the lake but in a part of it he had never seen before – although he thought he knew every bit of it from childhood. The storm had disappeared as quickly as it had risen up, the sun had come out again and Wen stretched out on the grass to dry his clothes. He must have fallen asleep, for the next thing he new the sun was low in the sky and he could hear voices close by and getting closer. Quickly he got up and ran to hide in a small thicket of trees not far away. He did not quite know why he hid like this instead of waiting and asking for help, but he felt something strange in the air of this new place and was a little bit afraid. The voices turned out to be coming from a group of brightly-dressed girls who Wen though looked about 17. They were laughing and chatting and playing catch with balls with silver bells on them. Amongst them there was one tall girl, even more beautiful and more beautifully-dressed than the others, who seemed to be the leader of the group. Wen thought she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and was sure she must be a princess.

He stayed hidden amongst the trees and watched in delight as the girls passed on their way. After they had passed he looked back along the road they had been walking on and saw a fine red silk scarf lying on the ground. He recognized it as one the girl he thought of as a princess had been wearing and hurried back to pick it up. It was made of the finest, lightest silk with delicate threads of silver woven through it. The sight and feel of it, and the memory of who had been wearing it, so inspired Wen that a poem sprang ready-written into his head. Hardly thinking what he was doing, Wen spread the scarf out on a smooth flat rock nearby, took the ink, inkstone and brush that he always carried with him in a pouch at his belt and started to write (calligraphy). So inspired was he that he put every ounce of his skill into the characters and produced the most beautiful writing he had ever done. Wen sat by the rock with the scarf on it waiting for the ink to dry, but very soon he found that he was so tired he nodded off to sleep.

The next thing he knew, he was being shaken awake and a cross girl’s voice was saying; “Who are you? And what have you done to the princess’s scarf?” Wen looked up and saw one of the girls from the group he had seen, standing over him shaking her finger at him. “This is her best scarf and you have ruined it with your scribbling!” Wen began apologizing as hard as he could and explained what had happened to him: that he had been almost drowned in the storm and didn’t know where he was. He hadn’t meant to ruin the princess’s scarf, but had been so moved by her beauty that he just couldn’t help himself. The girl listened to him with the beginnings of a smile on her face, because she could she that Wen was telling the truth and meant no harm. “Very well”, she said. “You stay here and I will take the scarf back to the princess. I will tell her your story and we will see what we can do to help. But you must be very careful you stay hidden, because if the Dragon King’s guards find you here they will take you off and execute you. No mortals are allowed to come here uninvited.” Wen was really scared at this, thanked the girl for her warning and promised to stay hidden until she came back with news.

As the girl left, he looked around for a place to hide. The trees where he had hidden before seemed like the best place, but this time he climbed up into the branches of one of them, even though they were not very thick and felt rather dangerous. No sooner had he settled himself than he heard the loud sound of marching feet coming in his direction. He peered out through the leaves and could see a squadron of soldiers coming along the road. The looked very large and very fierce and at that distance Wen couldn’t quite make out whether they were actually crocodiles or men wearing armour and helmets made out of crocodile skin. He leaned out a little further to get a better look, and as he did so the branch underneath him cracked and gave way. Wen tumbled down out of the tree and fell pretty well under the feet of the leading guardsman. The crocodile guard hardly even stopped marching; he just hissed fiercely, grabbed hold of Wen and began to drag him off. As the guards marched Wen off in the direction of the Dragon King’s Palace, from that same direction came the girl who had found Wen and the tall beautiful princess, holding the red scarf in one hand. She had been very moved by the beauty of Wen’s poem and the grace of his writing; she had also felt sorry for him, and decided to help him. And when she saw how handsome and noble Wen looked, even in the hands of the crocodile guards, she found she wanted to help him even more! She pleaded with the guards to let him go but they would not listen; she tried ordering them as their princess, but they took orders only from the Dragon King. And so the party made its way through the gardens towards a palace about half a mile a way. All the time Wen was struggling vainly against the strong grip of the crocodile guards, and the princess and her maid were pleading with them to let Wen go.

As they entered the first great courtyard of the palace, they met another party coming out of one of the splendid pavilions. At the head of this group was a tall stately woman, dressed in a glorious embroidered silk robe and with her hair coiled up in a very elaborate hair-do. She stopped and looked at Wen and the princess and the guards, and then asked the princess rather sternly, “Well, daughter, what king of mischief have you got up to now?” The princess blushed deeply and began to explain. As she was doing so, the Queen began to look at Wen more closely and she frowned slightly as though trying to remember something. One of the maids in her party also came and stood beside her looking at Wen. “It is him, Your Majesty! It is him!” she suddenly exclaimed, and the Queen turned to look at her and nodded slowly. “I thought it was” she said. “But I wasn’t sure.” Then she turned to the captain of the guards and ordered him to release Wen. Wen was amazed and fell to his knees at the Queen’s feet. The Queen smiled down at him and said: “You will not recognize me, for the last time your saw me, or my maid here, we were in the shape of a dolphin and a silver carp. We were making a trip across the lake to visit friends of mine when your general took up his bow and shot me. I have never forgotten the kindness you showed me, and have very much wanted to meet you again so I could thank you and reward you. You shall most certainly have your freedom and the Dragon King, my husband, and I will also grant your dearest wish. Tell it to me now.”

Wen was so astonished he could barely speak, but he stammered out his thanks. Then he stole a glance at the princess who was still standing close by, and she smiled at him with great warmth and moved to stand next to him. Wen suddenly found his courage returning, and a glow spread through him at the touch of the princess. He looked up at the Queen and spoke. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I am overwhelmed by your kindness. I was not thinking of reward when I saved that dolphin, but now, as you have offered me my dearest wish, I know that the thing I want most of all is to marry your daughter the Princess. Her eyes tell me that she will agree too.” The Queen was a little put out by Wen request – it was not quite what she had expected! Nevertheless, she had made her promise and she too could see that her daughter did not object to the idea. “Very well” she said. “It shall be so. I shall go and tell the King. He will not argue with me.”

And so it was that, a few weeks later, a magnificent wedding was arranged. The dragon kings from the West Lake and the East Lake also came, bringing splendid gifts for the couple, and they celebrated with much feasting and singing and dancing. Wen stayed living in the land of the Dragon King of Lake Dong Ting, and the General always wondered what had happened to his new secretary. Some other people knew, however, for once or twice a year, Wen would sail across the lake in secret taking money, food and other gifts to his parents who still lived on the shore of the lake. They were delighted by the good fortune of their son, and shared his gifts with the other people in their village. That village became one of the happiest and richest in the area, and no-one from outside could understand why, for the villagers kept very quiet about the story of Wen and the Dragon King’s daughter.