Procursus:

This story is from the group of “Liáozhāi” 聊斋 stories by the Pú Sōnglíng 蒲松龄 (1640-1715). (Click here for a brief background note on Pú and this group of stories.)

The present story bears the Chinese title Qiàn Nǚ Yōu Hún 倩女幽魂, which can be translated “Fair Maid, Lonely Soul,” but in Chinese it is often called simply after the name of the ghost maid herself, and in English various transcriptions of that name are sometimes used, as well as “The Magic Sword,” “The Magic Sword and Bag,” and others. The popularity of this story (like that of several of Pú's other stories) has led to countless retellings, both in books and in visual media, often with significant variation. Click here for more detail.

The story concerns a ghost named NIÈ Xiǎoqiàn 聂小倩, or “Little Beauty of the Niè family,” who has been enslaved by a hideous demon, preventing her timely reincarnation. The demon uses her to seduce young men, whom the demon then devours.

The scene is set near the Orchid Temple (Lánruò Sì 兰若寺), an abandoned monastery in Zhèjiāng 浙江 province, near the town where author Pú briefly served as magistrate. The noble hero of the story, NÌNG Cǎichén 宁采臣, has stopped for shelter in the building, where he meets and eventually befriends a swordsman named YÀN Dàjiǎo 燕大佼). Swordsman Yàn warns him of the menace of the demon.

Meanwhile, the captive ghost Niè is assigned to seduce Nìng and deliver him to the demon. Instead, she instead falls in love with him. In the end … well … read the story.

To avoid copyright complications, the English version presented here is modified from an 1880 translation by Herbert A. Giles. I have very freely modified it to update some Victorian expressions and to accord better with the Chinese text here and there. Giles omits or recasts some of the overtly sexual aspects of the tale, including the sexual aggressiveness of Niè herself, whom he correctly represents as the demon’s victim, but who is hardly a fading violet even without a demon behind her. (Her referring to Nìng’s parents as her in-laws is evidence enough of that.) The omitted or softened material has here been restored.

Pú’s original text uses a number of terms for ghosts and demons. The boundaries of these terms are vague in Chinese, and they map badly onto English in any case. The differences are rarely relevant here. Click here for more detail.

—DKJ