The Village God

In the southern fields stood a ruined shrine to the Village God. Its walls had fallen and its tiles were gone, its incense long cold. Each year on the She Festival the villagers raised a stage before the shrine to act their plays, yet the god's image, thick with dust, none ever glanced at. In a year of great drought the shaman said the plays must cease, that rain might be prayed for; and the villagers obeyed. That night the old keeper of the shrine dreamt of a man in short coat and brown cap, who bowed and said, "Small though the play is, it is a village's joy. Rain has its season, but joy is rare. I beg you restore it." The old man woke and thought it a fancy. The next day the image in the shrine sat upright as if new, and upon the altar lay three grains of millet, plainly crumbs from the play-stage. The villagers marveled and held the play after all. As the act began, black clouds rose from the eastern hill and a fine rain fell—neither flooding nor failing, but exactly watering the crops. When the play ended the clouds broke, and the seedlings stood green. The village elder said, "The Village God asked not for sacrifice, but only treasured a moment's mirth among men." The Chronicler of the Strange remarks: A god's power lies not in might and reward, but in knowing the worth of a single village play. In small things is the great seen; was not the Village God near to goodness?