Lords Seven and Eight
(Qīyé-Bāyé 七爷八爷)

Dramatis Personae

FÀN Wújiù 范无救 = a very short man, known for his fraternal loyalty

XIÈ Bì’ān 谢必安 = a very tall man, also known for his fraternal loyalty

The City God = an admirer of loyalty

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, in Fújiàn 福建 province, there lived two men who were close friends. One was very, very short, the other very, very tall. The short man was named FÀN Wújiù 范无救, and the tall one was named XIÈ Bì’ān 谢必安. Little is known of them, except that they loved each other very much and were such inseperable friends that they became sworn brothers. They also had great mastery of martial arts. Some say they worked as runners (chāiyì 差役) at the local yámén 衙门, serving warrents and hauling in criminals for judgement, but never harming honest folk. Others say they roamed the countryside together righting wrongs and protecting village people from bandits and corrupt officials.

Once they were caught in a torrential rain, and great curtains of water beat down upon them. They had reached the South Platform Bridge (Nántái Qiáo 南台桥), when Tall Brother Xiè told Short Brother Fàn to wait under the bridge while he went to see if he could find a large umbrella to shelter them from the driving rain. And with that he headed off into the night. He was gone a long time, and the storm did not abate. On the contrary, it rained harder and, if possible, harder yet, and the water under the bridge rose higher and higher. Short Brother Fàn should have headed out to look for higher ground, but he had given his word that he would wait for Tall Brother Xiè to return, so he remained where he was. Suddenly a great wall of water swept over him. Loyal little Fàn Wújiù was drowned, and his body was washed downstream.

By the time Xiè Bì’ān returned with the umbrella, the rain had already begun letting up. It was hard to be sure quite where he had left Fàn waiting. He sought and sought and called and called for more than a day, or perhaps more than two or three days. Finally he found little Fàn’s dead body, bloated and already turning reddish black, caught on a tree root as the waters receded.

Xiè was overcome with grief. Life without his friend Fàn seemed impossible, or anyway not worth bothering with, and in remorse he hanged himself. They found his tall body, its face chalky white and puffed up, with its bloated tongue protruding, hanging from the tree where poor Fàn’s body was rotting at the root.

No one knew if they had any families. Village people no doubt buried them somewhere. But nobody now knows where, for without descendents a man’s memory is lost and his grave forgotten, and that is as true for men of virtue as for any other men.

The extraordinary affection and loyalty that Fàn had for Xiè (so much that he was drowned rather than leaving the place where he had agreed to wait), and that Xiè had for Fàn (so much that he hanged himself rather than go on living without his sworn brother), much moved the City God (Chénghuáng 城隍), who had them appointed as his assistants, where they continue to work together to protect the people from bandits and other bad elements.

(Other people say that the city god never noticed them. But when LǏ Shìmín 李世民, the second emperor of the Táng dynasty [reign 12a-2], visited the land of the dead in a dream, Fàn and Xiè kindly served as his guides, and after he awoke the good emperor rewarded them by appointing them assistants to the startled City God.)

Xiè Bì’ān is today known as General Xiè (Xiè jiāngjūn 谢将军) or sometimes as “The Big Lord” (Dàyé 大爷), while Fàn Wújiù is known as General Fàn (Fàn jiāngjūn 范将军) or “The Small Lord” (Xiǎoyé 小爷). Most usually they are called “Lords Seven and Eight” (Qīyé Bāyé 七爷八爷), perhaps because the character for seven () is tall and thin, like General Xiè while the character for eight () is short and squat, like genral Fàn.

Sometimes they are also called Lord Short (Ǎi’yé 矮爷) and Lord Tall (Gāoyé 高爷) or the Red Lord (Chìyé 赤爷) and the White Lord (Báiyé 白爷).

In temples, they are most often represented not by ordinary statues, but instead by huge, puppet-like costumes, so that they can march grandly down the street with the City God whenever he goes out on procession.

General Fàn is easily recognized by his short stature and dark red or black skin and by the little plaque he carries reading “Good and Evil Clearly Differentiated” (shàn’è fēnmíng 善恶分明). General Xiè is recognized by his chalky white skin and his long tongue, and by his tall stature, made taller yet by a high white hat bearing the words, “one glimpse, great felicity” (yījiàn dàjí 一见大吉), which of course is what the village people felt about these men when they were alive. In most temples, General Xiè still carries the fatal umbrella.

Today, when people die, Lords Seven and Eight come to summon them and escort them to the City God’s court as the first step into the world of the dead, where good and bad deeds are judged and punishment is meted out before a person is reincarnated. (Some people used to think that the statues in the City God temple came to life at night in order to go out to perform this duty.) Most people have committed at least some bad deeds, so people today fear a visit from Lords Seven and Eight just as much as village folk in their lifetime welcomed the protection offered by these firm and loyal friends. For this reason the words “one glimpse, great felicity” on General Xiè’s hat have become … well … pretty creepy. People point out that even their names are disturbing: FÀN Wújiù’s 范无救 name means “without salvation,” XIÈ Bì’ān’s 谢必安 means “must be pacified.”