Whitesnake 2: Green Snake Robbery movie poster.
"White Snake 2" mainly takes Xiao Qing as the perspective, telling the story of Xiao Bai in order to save Xu Xianshui flooding the Golden Mountain, after being pressed under the Leifeng Pagoda by Fahai, Xiao Qing carries the obsession of going out to save Xiao Bai, bent on defeating Fahai, tearing down the Leifeng Pagoda, and thus practicing in Shuluo City. Director Huang Jiakang said in an interview that "Xiaoqing is an independent modern woman", "The Legend of the White Snake" is too classic, but there is not much creative space, so the team chose to reinterpret the classic through Xiaoqing's perspective while retaining the emotional core and character relationship of the original.
The story of White Snake 2 is based on the folklore "The Legend of the White Snake". As one of the four major Chinese folklore, "The Legend of the White Snake", like "Cow Lang Weaver Girl", "Liang Zhu" and "Meng Jiang Girl", is a well-known story of the Chinese people. Among them, the storyline of "The Legend of the White Snake" is particularly complicated, with love entanglements between people and demons, the divine and demonic fighting methods that are incompatible, as well as the worldly glory of high school leaders, and even the happy reunion, of course, including the West Lake, Jinshan Temple and even Leifeng Pagoda related to the story. The fascinating plot makes "The Legend of the White Snake" favored by novels, paintings, scripts, operas, films, animations, dances and other art forms. This article talks about the secrets behind the story of the White Snake that are still unknown and have yet to be captured.
Written by | Sheng Wenqiang
01
The story begins
"The Legend of the White Snake", by Lin Fengmian.
The original snake spirit story was mostly based on the theme of demons and harming people. The Tang legend "Li Huang" included in the Taiping Guangji can be seen as the beginning of the white snake story. In the second year of Tang Yuanhe, Li Huang, a native of Longxi, saw a woman dressed in white in Chang'an City, "nicknamed the color of the absolute generation", and could not help but be admired, so he often passed by, and later he was killed so that his body gradually dissolved, turning into a pool of water, leaving only his head. The servants went to the house of the white-clothed woman, and the locals said, "Often there is a giant white snake under the tree, and there is nothing else." It should be said that this is a rather frightening story, Li Huang was close to the white snake essence, and was hit by snake venom, resulting in the ablation of the whole body.
The elements of the white snake and the woman in white in "Li Huang" have begun to take shape in the story of the white snake. There is also a "Luoyang Giant Snake Incident" in the main history, which can also be regarded as one of the sources of the white snake story. According to the Old Book of Tang, "In Tianbao, there is a giant snake in Luoyang, which is tall and yu, and is a hundred feet long, out of the bottom of Mount Mang. The Monk Hu saw it fearlessly and sighed: "This desire to break the water into the city of Los Angeles." "That is, with the heavenly zhu mantra, the snake will die for a few days." A giant snake was about to flood Luoyang and was subdued by the Tianzhu monks. The monk snake fighting method in the "Legend of the White Snake", the water flooding the golden mountain and other bridge sections, or from this.
The "Qingping ShanTang Dialect Book" contains a Song Dynasty script "Three Pagodas of the West Lake", the protagonist is called Xi Xuanzan, which is close to the pronunciation of the later Xu Xian. Xi Xuanzan visited the West Lake on the day of the Qingming Festival, met a lost little girl, And later met Bai Shi, the mother of the slave, who was a beautiful woman dressed in white. In addition, there is a mother-in-law in the family. When the Bai clan saw Xi Xuanzan, they killed their husbands and forced Xuanzan to be her husband. Later, Xuanzan learned that this white-clothed woman was going to change her husband every few days, and she couldn't help but be frightened and found an opportunity to escape. Fortunately, Xuanzan's uncle Xi Zhenren returned from learning the Tao on The Dragon Tiger Mountain, cast a spell to catch the monster, "Only to see that the slave has become a black chicken, the mother-in-law is an otter, and the white-clothed lady is a white snake." "Xi Zhenren used iron cans to pack three monsters, sealed the spell, sank in the West Lake, and then built three stone towers to suppress the three demons, which is today's Three Pools Yingyue."
In the Ming Dynasty Feng Menglong's "Cautionary Tales", there is an article "White Lady Yongzhen Leifeng Pagoda", which seems to be deduced on the basis of the Song Dynasty script, the protagonist's name is Xu Xuan, this part is also said that the snake demon harms people, and finally was captured and suppressed under the Leifeng Pagoda in the West Lake. The "Legend of Leifeng Taqi" of the master of the Jade Mountain in the Qing Dynasty has appeared a relatively complete story, and a happy ending has been installed, and Xu Xian and his wife have finally both soared into immortals in the daytime. The "Complete Biography of the White Snake" by the owner of the Republic of China Dream Flower Museum is a collection of white snake stories, and the TV series "The Legend of the New White Lady" with a richer storyline and a wide influence is adapted from this.
02
Human-faced snake body
In the "Search mountain map" painted by the Song people, you can see the monster running everywhere, including a snake spirit hiding in a cave, the upper body is dressed as a woman, and the waist is below the snake. This figure was made about the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, which is roughly equivalent to the age of the story of "The Legend of the White Snake", such as the "Three Pagodas of the West Lake" set in the Southern Song Dynasty during the Reign of Emperor Xiaozong Chunxi, and Feng Menglong's "White Lady Yongzhen Leifeng Pagoda" set during the Southern Song Dynasty Gaozong Shaoxing, and many descendants have followed it.
The image of the snake demon synchronized with the text is half-human and half-snake, reminiscent of the gods of Nüwa, Fuxi, and Candle Yin in ancient times. The configuration of the human-faced snake body was once the image of a very prominent god in ancient times, and the yokai of later generations also had this shape, and there was a secret connection between the gods and the demons.
Snake spirit in the fragments of the Song Dynasty "Search Mountain Map".
"Tang Dynasty Fuxi Nuwa Statue", the Palace Museum collection.
Japanese folklorist Kunio Yanagida believes that "yokai are degraded by gods who have lost their faith", and over time, the ancient faith declined, and the gods of the past collapsed and were reduced to yokai. For example, the Japanese monster kappa is considered to be the descending of the river, the headless ghost is the demotion of the punishment heaven, and the fox spirit is the demotion of the Tushan clan. This form of demotion does not imply reciprocity, but rather fission and rebirth in fragments of ancient mythology. In the story, the White Lady gradually returns from evil to righteousness, and after the decline of the human-faced snake-like divinity into a demon, it returns to the phenomenon of returning to the ancestors of the true god. Later, the White Lady was finally ranked in the Xianban, which echoed the identity in the ancient mythology.
Lady of the Mistress, 19th century "Strange Talks about Emoticons".
Snake demons are more common than Jiangnan, which is related to the growth environment of snakes, just as fox spirits are mainly active in North China. In the Jiangnan area, the divine attributes of the human-faced snake body are still secretly transmitted among the people, and clues can be found in the folk paper horses. The "barbarians" in Jiangsu paper horses are regarded as the gods of the family house, people think that the snake in the home is an auspicious omen, the Qing Dynasty Wu Qian's "Taoxi Guest Language" said: "The custom of Biling (Changzhou) is more than the dark place to build a small room to worship the gods, called the barbarian house, the god-like human head snake body, do not know the beginning." The "god of water and soil" in the Shanghai paper horse is also a human-faced snake body, and it still retains the witch wind in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", and has been reduced from the great god who dominates the heavens and the earth and mountains and rivers in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" to the local god of water and soil, but the jurisdiction has been greatly reduced.
The human head and the snake body god, the Qing carved version of the "Mountains and Seas Sutra Drawing Extensive Annotation".
"The White Lady", Shigeru Miyao.
03
Spatial imagination
The locations involved in the story of the white snake are Hangzhou, Suzhou and Zhenjiang, according to the Master of Yushan", "Leifeng Taqi Biography", Xu Xian is a Hangzhou native, and later encountered the white snake stealing the treasury silver two and was convicted, distributed to Suzhou, in Suzhou and because the white snake stole the treasures of the Liang King's Mansion, distributed to Zhenjiang, the two distributions were on duty at the station, and soon they were paid out by friends.
It is precisely because the protagonist commits a series of crimes, which also causes the story to have a spatial displacement. Hangzhou, Suzhou and Zhenjiang are all places with excellent scenery in Jiangnan. Since the "Change of Jingkang", the Southern Song Dynasty has been in a corner of the Southern Song Dynasty, with the capital lin'an, and the center of gravity is in the Jiangnan area, and the line of Hangzhou, Suzhou and Zhenjiang is the prosperous area of the Southern Song Dynasty. Folklore shifted from the fields to the hustle and bustle of the city, the rural legends were transformed into urban legends, and the cities at this time were mostly garden-like spaces, and in the famous scenes such as borrowing umbrellas from the lake and flooding the golden mountains, the landscape and idyllic style could be seen.
Dong Bangda, "Broken Bridge Remnant Snow", collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
The beauty of the West Lake is suitable for talking about love, while the terrain of Jinshan is suitable for fighting. Water flooding Jinshan mountain occurred in Zhenjiang's Jinshan Island, originally a mountain island in the Yangtze River, more than 40 meters high, more than 500 meters a week, although it is a land of bullets, but it can be seen that the Jiangshan shape wins, the so-called "Wanchuan East Note, an island neutral", standing on the Golden Mountain overlooking the Yangtze River, the heart is open. According to the "Chronicle of the Nine Domains", the Tang Dynasty monk Fahai dug up gold in Jinshan and used it to build a temple, so it was named Jinshan. The Fahai in "The Legend of the White Snake" is also named from here.
Similar to the jinshan terrain, there are also the neighboring Jiaoshan and Beigu Mountains, these three mountain islands in the Yangtze River are called "Jingkou Three Mountains", the suspension space in the vast smoke wave, reminiscent of the legend that there are three immortal mountains overseas: Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou, Qin Shi Huang seeking immortal medicine is to find these three immortal mountains, Tu Long's "Three Mountains Zhixu" believes: "The three mountains of Penglai, Abbot and Yingzhou in the Oriental Shuo "Divine Anomaly Classic" are in the sea, and the so-called Beigu, Jin, and Jiao three mountains are in Runzhou Lingqi and empty, and the three mountains of the Shuji Sea are subsected. "The similar spatial structure constitutes a simulation of the overseas immortal mountains. In such a place, it is inevitable that some magical things will happen.
"Water Flooding the Golden Mountain", an export painting in the late Qing Dynasty.
The flickering and moving of space adds a lot to the art of flying change. The battle between Fahai and the two snakes is all-round, land and air, and it seems inappropriate to be placed in the beautiful and tranquil West Lake, and it is like a natural arena in the golden mountain where the boulders are steep and the rivers are stirring. The Yangtze River connects to the East China Sea, and the White Snake also borrows shrimp soldiers and crabs from the East Sea to help the army, and attracts the water of the East Sea to submerge the Golden Mountain. In the mountains and rivers of Jiangnan, it has bred a protracted battle, and at the same time, it is also a short succession of morals and concepts, which is bound to turn the world upside down.
04
Oviparous with navel
In the story of the White Snake, there is an unnoticed detail, and that is the problem of the belly button of the White Lady. The snake is oviparous, not mammalian, and naturally has no umbilical cord connected to the mother, so the white lady has no navel eye. On the wedding night, Xu Xian was confused about the smooth abdomen as a mirror, not knowing what kind of excuse the white lady should use to fool through, perhaps she was highly powerful and could already conjure up a false navel, and it was not known. Hiding the navel is the secret of hiding the life, the small navel, more critical than the male yellow wine of the Dragon Boat Festival, the identity of the non-my race of monsters is tied to this.
In the TV series "The Legend of the New White Lady", Xu Xian's brother-in-law Li Gongfu already knew that the White Lady was a snake spirit and accepted this fact. When the White Lady was pregnant, with deep concern, he put forward the famous Li Gongfu's question: "The snake lays eggs, in case five or six eggs come..." Li Gongfu's question is very representative, and the White Lady has no abnormality when she gives birth to a son, which is generally the same as human childbirth.
"Drinking Xiong HuangJiu", a Qing Dynasty Yangliu youth painting.
Here, the production method of the white lady may be oviparous birth, also known as pseudo-fetal birth. That is, the snake egg hatches in the mother's womb and is then produced by the mother. In the face of an increasingly complex external environment, some snakes evolve into incubation within the mother, which can play a protective role. The cockroach subfamily in the python is oviparous, which is suspected to be the true body of the white lady, and this oviparous fetus also has no navel. The son of the White Lady, Xu Shilin, that is, the one who later examined the Middle Yuanlang, was born in the eggshell in the mother's womb, just like Pangu before the opening of the world, living in the chaotic chickens, so it seems that Pangu should be the same as Xu Shilin, there is no navel eye, similar situation, there should be Sun Wukong born in the stone egg.
The Master of The Jade Mountain, "The Biography of Leifeng Taqi", writes very briefly in the section on childbirth: "When the three sons arrived, the red light filled the room, Wen Xing descended into the world, Xiao Qing picked it up, saw that it was a boy, and Han Wen was very happy, helped Bai Shi to bed, and was busy until dawn all night." The owner of the Dream Flower Hall wrote in detail in the "Complete Biography of the White Snake", writing that when it came to the pot, Xu Xian did not dare to go to the midwife, for fear that the white snake would appear in its original form in pain, or give birth to eggs, and it would inevitably be shocking to spread it out. There is also the situation of Xiaoqing delivering the baby for the white lady: "took the warm soup and bathed, cut the umbilical cord, bandaged it and put it on the bed", perhaps the author ignored this problem, and added an umbilical cord between the mother and the child, the author of the story is not familiar with the habits of the snake, but is accustomed to starting from the human point of view, unconsciously has personified the white snake.
"Zhuangyuan Sacrifice Pagoda", Qing Dynasty Fuding Cake Flower.
05
The distinction between good and evil
Folklore to "The Legend of the White Snake", the realm began to grow. The white snake story outside the written text is much richer in form than the text. What can be seen is that the story of the white snake is free from the limitations of the farming tradition, at least no longer wants a house, land, and cattle as Dong Yong did when he met the Seven Fairies, but to open a pharmacy and practice medicine to heal diseases. The prosperity of the economy has led to the illumination of commercial activities into folklore, which is no longer the story of farmers, but the story of merchants.
God of water and soil, Shanghai paper horse, Qing Dynasty.
The early white snake story directly chen snake demon harmful people, naturally the nature of the snake is fierce, revealing its original face can scare Xu Xian to death, at the same time there is a contradiction between etiquette and female sex, Fahai's preaching is strong, quite like Mr. Taoism, waving the stick of morality everywhere. Xu Xian is a symbol of desire, and he has always been unable to get rid of the entanglement of love.
With the continuous enrichment of the story and the addition of folk elements, the white snake's demon qi has become more and more diluted, but it has given birth to some chivalrous spirit of Zhi'en Tu Bao, so there is "The Legend of the Righteous Demon" in the Suzhou bullet words, called the Righteous Demon. The feelings between people and demons were originally a forbidden area that was eye-catching, but they were also blessed by people.
"You Lake", Qing Jiaqing published "Embroidery Like a Righteous Demon Biography".
Once the white snake broke through the level of demon and evil, it tortured the value judgment of good and evil. Duality is a common form of folklore – good people are particularly good, bad people are particularly bad, driving bad people away, and good people live a carefree and happy life. The facialized personality seems to be related to the flat ecology of the agricultural era, from the mode of production to the way of life, it is difficult to think about slightly more complex things. Even today, this is still the way of thinking of most people.
Barbarian, Jiangsu Yixing paper horse.
The story of the White Snake introduces a new standard in addition to good and evil. Although the white snake is a demon, its deeds are good deeds, and it is possible to reach the essence without looking at its origins, but by looking at how it acts. Fahai represents a simple and crude binary opposing mind in the story, which is not only not loved by people, but also hated by people. In folklore, Fahai received the White Lady, the heavens blamed him for his unfair behavior, and arrested him everywhere, he had no choice but to hide in the crab shell, and there was a membrane in the inner shell of the hairy crab, revealing that inside was the appearance of an arhat who was meditating cross-legged, which was said to be the Fahai who avoided disasters and avoided disasters.
Then, you might as well think of "The Legend of the White Snake" as a fable that opens the mind, so as to break the stupidity in the mind.
The author | Sheng Wenqiang
Editors| Li Shane and Li Yongbo
Proofreader | Lee Sai-fai