The Tree Spirit

East of the village stood an old locust, of unknown age, said to be a thousand years. Its roots twined about the well, and the well never failed through the year; they who drank fell not sick, and the villagers honoured it as a sacred tree, with rites in its season. There came a carpenter from abroad, Li the Second, greedy and bold. Seeing the locust huge enough to sell for a thousand gold, he heeded not the village elders' warning, and took up his axe to fell it. At the first stroke the wood gave no sound but spattered a red liquor, like blood; at the second the blade turned and notched, and would not enter. Li grew angry and struck the harder, when suddenly the well-water turned turbid, green scum rose upon it, and a fishy stench pressed close. That night Li dreamed of a grey-faced old man in a brown coat, standing beneath the locust, who said: "I have kept this well a thousand years, and watered your neighbours. You would sell my body, and dry men's drink. I shall not kill you—only I take your axe and drive you out, that you may learn fear." So saying he laid a hand on Li's shoulder; Li woke with a start, his shoulder swollen like a peach, and the axe was gone. At dawn Li fled the village in haste, bearing his hurt. Thence the well-water cleared again, and the villagers raised a small shrine at the tree's root, its incense unbroken. In later droughts, when other wells ran dry, only this one stayed full; men held it the tree-spirit's reward. The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: A tree yet knows to guard the water of a place; a man will drain his neighbour's spring. The tree-spirit's punishment stopped at banishing the stranger—merciful, one might say. Were all who fell another's shelter for their own gain to meet this old man, the world would have fewer dry wells.