Yán 炎, aka Shénnóng 神农 = a legendary emperor
Nǚwá 女娃 = his dangerously cute daughter
In the north there is a mountain named Fājiū shān 发鸠山 which is covered with cudrania and mulberry trees. And among these trees there lives a kind of bird, about the size of a crow, but with a brightly colored head and a white beak and red feet. The call of the bird sounds like “jīngwèi jīngwèi” 精卫, and so jīngwèi is also its name.
But the bird was not always a bird. On the contrary, she was once the beautiful daughter of Emperor Yán 炎帝 (reign 01a-2), better known as Shénnóng 神农, the monarch who invented agriculture. As a girl, her name was Nǚwá 女娃 (not to be confused with the goddess Nǚwā 女娲, who created humans).
Because she was very cute and entirely charming, Emperor Shénnóng much indulged little Nǚwá, and permitted her to roam about at will, which did not show very good judgment on his part.
One day she wandered away to the Eastern Sea to play, where she found a boat and rode out over the waters. A storm came up and swamped the boat, and she was drowned.
Nǚwá was of course missed at home, and when she did not return at night, Emperor Shénnóng began to panic. For nine days and nine nights he sought for her but of course did not find her. He did see a bird with a colored head and a white beak and red feet, but he did not realize it was a transformation of his daughter’s soul.
(There are people who say it is far-fetched to imagine a little girl rowing out to sea merely for amusement. It is far more credible, they argue, that Nǚwá actually crossed the sea because she was in search of a Daoist named Red Pine [Chìsōngzǐ 赤松子], which is why she ended up turning into a bird. That is not at all far-fetched, they say.)
The bird flew back and forth from the western mountain, where it picked up twigs and pebbles in its beak, to the eastern sea, where it dropped them. And so it continued for years and years.
At length the eastern sea asked the bird the reason why it was carrying so much material and dropping it into the water. The bird explained that she was angry that her life had been cut short, and she was determined to fill the sea so that no-one else should ever drown there. The eastern sea was much amused, and told her that she would never be able to fill a whole sea.
But the little Jīngwèi bird was determined, and some say that to this day she continues her labor of carrying sticks and stones, unwilling to abandon her anger, her revenge, or her good work. Others say that the Queen Mother in the West (Xīwángmǔ 西王母) took pity on her and gave her a job in her garden, where, however, she still has the form of a bird and still carries twigs and pebbles about.