The Trader's Son by Pu Songling
A trader's ten-year-old son wounds a fox that has bewitched his mother, but its spells resume after his father returns home. Posing as a fellow fox, the boy gives poisoned wine to a fox servant, killing the two brothers who have bewitched his mother and Mrs. Wang. Mrs. Wang improves, but the boy's mother dies of consumption after regaining her reason; his father trains him in riding and archery, and he later attains high military rank.
By Pu Songling · Genre: Short Story, Supernatural Fiction · 2,467 words
First lines
In the province of Hunan there dwelt a man who was engaged in trading abroad; and his wife, who lived alone, dreamt one night that some one was in her room. Waking up, she looked about, and discovered a small creature which on examination she knew to be a fox; but in a moment the thing had disappeared, although the door had not been opened. The next evening she asked the cook-maid to come and keep her company; as also her own son, a boy of ten, who was accustomed to sleep elsewhere. Towards the middle of the night, when the cook and the boy were fast asleep, back came the fox; and the cook was waked up by hearing her mistress muttering something as if she had nightmare. The former then called out, and the fox ran away; but from that moment the trader's wife was not quite herself. When night came she dared not blow out the candle, and bade her son be sure and not sleep too soundly. Later on, her son and the old woman having taken a nap as they leant against the wall, suddenly waked up and found her gone. They waited some time, but she did not return, and the cook was too frightened to go and look after her; so her son took a light, and at length found her fast asleep in another room. She didn't seem aware that anything particular had happened, but she became queerer and queerer every day, and wouldn't have either her son or the cook to keep her company any more. Her son, however, made a point of running at once into his mother's room if he heard any unusual sounds; and though his mother always abused him for his pains, he paid no attention to what she said. At the same time, the more people urged him on to keep a sharp look-out, the more eccentric were his mother's ways. One day she played at being a mason, and piled up stones upon the window-sill, in spite of all that was said to her; and if anyone took away a stone, she threw herself on the ground, and cried like a child, so that nobody dared go near her. In a few days she had got both windows blocked up and the light excluded; and then she set to filling up the chinks with mud. She worked hard all day without minding the trouble, and when it was finished she smoothed it off with the kitchen chopper. Everyone who saw her was disgusted with such antics, and would take no notice of her. At night her son darkened his lamp, and, with a knife concealed on his person, sat waiting for his mother to mutter. As soon as she began he uncovered his light, and, blocking up the doorway, shouted out at the top of his voice. Nothing, however, happened, and he moved from the door a little way, when suddenly out rushed something like a fox, which was disappearing through the door, when he made a quick movement and cut off about two inches of its tail, from which the warm blood was still dripping as he brought the light to bear upon it. His mother hereupon cursed and reviled him, but he pretended not to hear her, regretting only as he went to bed that he hadn't hit the brute fair. But he consoled himself by thinking that although he hadn't killed it outright, he had done enough to prevent it coming again. On the morrow he followed the tracks of blood over the wall and into the garden of a family named Ho; and that night, to his great joy, the fox did not reappear. His mother was meanwhile prostrate, with hardly any life in her, and in the midst of it all his father came home. The boy told him what had happened, at which he was much alarmed, and sent for a doctor to attend his wife; but she only threw the medicine away, and cursed and swore horribly. So they secretly mixed the medicine with her tea and soup, and in a few days she began to get better, to the inexpressible delight of both her husband and son. One night, however, her husband woke up and found her gone; and after searching for her with the aid of his son, they discovered her sleeping in another room. From that time she became more eccentric than ever, and was always being found in strange places, cursing those who tried to remove her.
Genres
- Short Story — A brief prose narrative follows a boy's attempts to free his mother from a fox's spells, ending with her death and his later military advancement.
- Supernatural Fiction — Foxes assume human appearances and bewitch women, while locked doors open by themselves for the boy's afflicted mother.
Tags
fox spirits · bewitchment · deception · poisoned wine · filial devotion
What this Textopian page supports
The Trader's Son is listed on Textopian as a short story by Pu Songling, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Short story
- Author: Pu Songling
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Short Story, Supernatural Fiction
- Length: 2,467 words
- Structure: 1 section, 6 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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