It was as quiet there as in a church. No wind stirred, no brook murmured, no bird sang, and through the thickly-leaved branches no sunbeam forced its way. The shoemaker spoke never a word, the heavy bread weighed down his back until the perspiration streamed down his cross and gloomy face. The tailor, however, was quite merry, he jumped about, whistled on a leaf, or sang a song, and thought to himself, "God in heaven must be pleased to see me so happy."



This lasted two days, but on the third the forest would not come to an end, and the tailor had eaten up all his bread, so after all his heart sank down a yard deeper. In the meantime he did not lose courage, but relied on God and on his luck. On the third day he lay down in the evening hungry under a tree, and rose again next morning hungry still; so also passed the fourth day, and when the shoemaker seated himself on a fallen tree and devoured his dinner,



the tailor was only a looker-on. If he begged for a little piece of bread the other laughed mockingly, and said, "Thou hast always been so merry, now thou canst try for once what it is to be sad: the birds which sing too early in the morning are struck by the hawk in the evening," In short he was pitiless. But on the fifth morning the poor tailor could no longer stand up, and was hardly able to utter one word for weakness; his cheeks were white, and his eyes red. Then the shoemaker said to him, "I will give thee a bit of bread to-day, but in return for it, I will put out thy right eye." The unhappy tailor who still wished to save his life, could not do it in any other way; he wept once out, and the shoemaker, who had a heart of stone, put out his right eye with a sharp knife. The tailor called to remembrance what his mother had formerly said to him when he had been eating secretly in the pantry. "Eat what one can, and suffer what one must." When he had consumed his dearly-bought bread,



he got on his legs again, forgot his misery and comforted himself with the thought that he could always see enough with one eye. But on the sixth day, hunger made itself felt again, and gnawed him almost to the heart. In the evening he fell down by a tree, and on the seventh morning he could not raise himself up for faintness, and death was close at hand. Then said the shoemaker, "I will show mercy and give thee bread once more, but thou shalt not have it for nothing, I shall put out thy other eye for it." And now the tailor felt how thoughtless his life had been, prayed to God for forgiveness, and said, "Do what thou wilt, I will bear what I must, but remember that our Lord God does not always look on passively, and that an hour will come when the evil deed which thou hast done to me, and which I have not deserved of thee,
  

But the old woman called out to her, "What are you afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do all the work in the house properly, you shall be the better for it. Only you must take care to make my bed well, and shake it thoroughly till the feathers fly -- for then there is snow on the earth. I am Mother Holle organic search result.

As the old woman spoke so kindly to her, the girl took courage and agreed to enter her service. She attended to everything to the satisfaction of her mistress, and always shook her bed so vigorously that the feathers flew about like snow-flakes. So she had a pleasant life with her; never an angry word; and boiled or roast meat every day.

She stayed some time with Mother Holle, and then she became sad. At first she did not know what was the matter with her, but found at length that it was home-sickness: although she was many thousand times better off here than at home, still she had a longing to be there.

At last she said to the old woman, "I have a longing for home; and however well off I am down here, I cannot stay any longer; I must go up again to my own people." Mother Holle said, "I am pleased that you long for your home again, and as you have served me so truly, I myself will take you up again."

Thereupon she took her by the hand, and led her to a large door. The door was opened, and just as the maiden was standing beneath the doorway, , and all the gold remained sticking to her, so that she was completely covered over with it .

  

Chairman Mao Zedong's poem in memory of his martyred wife Yang Kaihui has these well-known lines:

The lonely moon goddess spreads her ample sleeves

To dance for these loyal souls in infinite space.

Here, in the Chinese original, the name Chang'e is used instead of "moon goddess".

The figure of Chang'e, a beauty dressed in the elegant garments of a bygone age floating towards the moon, naturally supplies unending inspiration for painters and sculptors .
The fable the Wolf of Zhongshan has been attributed to various authors of the Tang, Song and Ming dynasties, but the happenings are simple and consistent. It runs as follows:

Master Dongguo, a pedantic teacher and follower of Mohism, was ready to help anyone in distress, whosoever he might be and regardless of the circumstances. One day on a journey through the Zhongshan Mountain, he came across a party of the Viscount Zhao Jianzi. At bay, the wolf glibly and fawningly begged the master to help him. The old man saw a chance to act on the Mohist doctrine of "universal fraternity". At the risk of incurring the displeasure of the nobleman, he took the books out of his travelling bag and put the wolf in. When the Viscount came along and enquired if he had seen a wolf in flight, Master Dongguo lied, saying that he had noticed nothing unusual. The hunters galloped on.

However, when the wolf was let out of the bag, he showed his true features. He said he was hungry; since the master was so kind as to have helped him once, he might as well do it again by allowing himself to be eaten. Furthermore, he bad been nearly suffocated in that beg a little while before, and that gave him another reason to avenge himself on the poor master. Now it was Master Dongguo's turn to take to his heels Azureliving.