The legend of the white crane and the camphor of Qinglongzhou

Cherry

The water flows upstream to the entrance of Yiyang City, where there is an island in the middle of the river. From a distance, lush and lush, like a green dragon, this is qinglongzhou. Originally, there were hundreds of residents on the island, who made a living by driving rows, fishing, and growing vegetables, but because of the need for flood control, all the residents moved away, leaving only an empty island. In recent years, windbreaks have been planted on the island, becoming a new landscape in Zishui.

In the windbreak forest, there are five incense camphors more than ten meters high, distributed in the head, middle and tail of the continent, arranged in a double "pin" character stack, and one plant has withered. There is a moving legend about these six camphors: it is said that more than a hundred years ago, an old couple on the continent, childless and childless, built a shack and lived by growing vegetables. At some point, a flock of white cranes, about a dozen or so, flew from the continent, perched in the reeds behind the old couple's shack. The old couple is very kind, often taking some fresh vegetable leaves to entertain these "neighbors", and over time, the white crane also trusts them and plays around them. When the white crane took off, the snow-white wings were connected, as if a white cloud was fluttering in the sky, which was beautiful, and the people in the city came to watch.

The news that the white crane had flown to Qinglongzhou reached the ears of the Prince of Zhixian. One day, Yauchi took a group of people with bows and arrows to qinglongzhou to hunt the white crane, saying that he had eaten the flesh of the white crane for immortality. They waited on the continent, saw the white crane flying in the air, immediately shot with an arrow, several white cranes unfortunately hit the arrow, fell from mid-air, the rest of the panic flew away...

On this day, the old couple was preparing to go out with a hoe, when they overheard the sound of objects falling to the ground outside the door, and quickly came out to check. Six white cranes fell outside the door, one of which had been hit by a feathered arrow, and the other five tightly surrounded the injured white crane. The old man was very calm, and immediately said to the old woman, "Someone is shooting the white crane, you quickly carry the arrow into the house!" The old woman picked up the injured white crane and entered the house, and several others followed suit. At this time, there was a rush of footsteps, and the old man quickly locked the door from the outside, grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and pasted it on his face, and kept muttering in his mouth. When he saw the old man, he shouted, "Old Man, where did the White Crane go?" The old man pretended to be crazy and stupid and casually pointed with his hand: "Over there!" A group of people chased after him.

The old couple drew arrows from the injured white crane, took herbs to apply to the wound, and then sent the white crane back to the reeds, and also found some wild grass and small snails that the white crane ate and gave them to eat. After a few days, the wounded white crane was healed and could take off with the cranes again.

The cranes seem to be humane, and every time they take off, they have to make two circles over the shack, and when they come back, they will also circle around the shack twice. One summer, the water soared, and the water flooded the continent, and it seemed that the waves were about to wash away the shack. Something strange happened: six white cranes suddenly landed in front of the shack, spread their wings, and guarded the shack like a breakwater for two days and one night.

These six white cranes have never left Zhouzi and have lived with the old couple for several years. Maybe they were frightened, maybe they were injured, they often cried out at night, their lives were very short, and they died one after another. The old couple buried them separately on the continent, and they felt that the white cranes were killed because they were too eye-catching when they gathered together. Later, a camphor grew in every place where the white crane was buried, and the canopy was lush and wide, like open wings, trying to sway upwards and soar among the blue sky and white clouds.

【Source: Yiyang Daily】

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