The Goat Spirit

At the foot of White Stone Ridge lay the village of Qingya, where an old shrine to the Goat God stood, its effigy a single pale goat carved from luminous white stone; the villagers called it the White Stone Goat Spirit. In years of drought they made offering, and the old custom was to sacrifice a living white goat, believing it would summon the rain.

There was a girl named Aqiao, an orphan of the village, sixteen years of age, who made her living herding goats. One cold spring she found an abandoned lamb at the cliff's foot, its fleece whiter than snow, and named it Xuetuan, "Snowball." She fed it on rice broth, and the lamb grew tame and never strayed; each evening it followed her home and lay at her feet, as if it understood her.

That year the drought was cruel. The spring ran dry, the crops scorched, the earth cracked. The village head, Old Zhou Kanda, called the people together and said, "The Goat Spirit is wrathful. In former times we sacrificed a living goat and the rain always came. Now we must take Snowball for the offering, to plead for pardon." When Aqiao heard this she held the goat and wept. "Snowball I raised with my own hands," she said. "It is no spirit's creature, and must not be killed." Old Zhou would not listen, and fixed the next day for the binding of the goat at the shrine.

At midnight Aqiao stole out with Snowball on her back and hid it in a cleft of the northern cliff. The stars were dim, the mountain wind cut like a blade. As she turned to leave, a white figure drifted from the edge of the woods — a young woman, robed in snow-white, her face gentle, standing by the dry spring. Aqiao started and asked who she was. The woman said, "I am the spirit of the goats of White Stone Ridge. That you love a goat as your own life, the mountain already knows. Yet the sacrifice your people would make is not what I desire."

Aqiao said, "If the spirit takes no pleasure in killing, why send the drought?"

The woman sighed. "The drought is not my doing. Men have taken too much from the mountain — felled its woods, drained its springs — and so the mountain withers of itself. The true offering is not blood, but restraint." Then she pointed to a crevice west of the cliff and said, "Here is a hidden spring, sealed these three years. If the villagers lay down their axes and let the trees live, the water will flow again. I shall use Snowball as a guide, to lead them from the drought's peril." With that the wind rose, and the woman vanished into the mist, leaving only a faint scent of grass.

The next day the sky turned black and thunder rolled along the ridge. Old Zhou, finding the goat unbound, searched the cliff in wrath. Then suddenly the storm broke, rain poured in sheets, and the mountain flood came down the old channel toward the village. At the very brink of danger Snowball leapt from the cleft, stamped its forehooves on the rock, lifted its head, and cried out to the people as if beckoning. Aqiao understood the woman's words and called all to follow. The goat led them up a narrow western path, winding into the deep, until they reached a stone cave where a cool spring chattered, newly risen. The villagers clambered in, and the flood did not reach them.

When the rain cleared, the spring flowed again and watered the fields to harvest. The village then abolished the sacrifice of living beasts, and each year set clear salt and fresh flowers before the shrine — they called it the "plain offering." Snowball returned to Aqiao and stayed with her to the end of her days. On mornings when the mountain mist lay heavy, a single clear note would sound faintly from the ridge, like a bell yet not a bell; none could say if it was the goat's cry, or the mountain spirit's laughter.

The Chronicler of the Strange says: Those who pray to the spirits often take bloody food for sincerity, not knowing that the mountain spirit takes no pleasure in slaughter, and prizes only the human heart's power to restrain itself. Aqiao was but a frail girl who could not bear to harm what she loved, and so won the mountain's protection; Old Zhou would have killed to flatter the god, and nearly drowned his whole village in the flood. Thus the truth of an offering lies not in the size of the victim, but in the single thought of kindness or cruelty in the heart. Let those who worship hereafter ponder this.