The Story of Silver-Haired Engwu

by L. S. Popovich

On my way home from the market, I spotted a portrait of the storyteller hung on the bulletin board among other notices. I couldn’t read the ideograms but, for as long as I could remember, villagers had described the sightings and crimes of various creatures and posted illustrations on the board. I recognized one called the gormandizer, which looked like a phalanx of worms, and the ur-vile, a tortoise with fiery armor. Crude renderings of wanted men also leered from beneath exorbitant rewards listed for their capture.

Instead of continuing home with my bag of rice, I sought the storyteller, asking passersby until I located him. He stood in vibrant robes behind a folding table of bamboo slats. In front of him lay his illustrated fan and battered gavel. He carried himself well for a baboon, covering all but his long arms and legs in the finest brocaded silk.

He wore no shoes, and the nails of his feet were trimmed, yellow and dangerous. His teeth were polished and sharp but remained concealed by his ponderous black lips. His small eyes were painted with soft unguent. His wide nose had two fine, black strings of moustache issuing directly from the nostrils to either side of his bright cheeks.

Whenever the laughter or the heckling got too loud, he banged the gavel and waved his arm, as if damping out the sparks of enthusiasm from the gathering crowd. The previous storyteller had been much larger, had erected a stage and had drawn more in his audiences than the ragamuffin villagers.

This one stuttered often, calling for alms, as if the words tumbled into his enormous mouth and rattled around before rushing out.

His intricately furnished mule cart was loaded with barrels chock-full of scrolls, boxes of supplies and, tucked in among them, a feral human slave, manacled and emaciated, who gnawed on a bone with fur on the end.

Stepping forward, I dropped a coin into the bucket, knowing Grandma would chide me later for it. I received a broad, animal grin from the performer. I stood a few feet from the stage, crammed next to large strangers. I felt the cuff of a hand on the back of my head, after I trod on someone’s robe.

The storyteller hushed the crowd, clacking his gavel. “The bucket is light,” he grumbled. “The coins are shallow. Have you no friends? Are they holed up in their huts, sleeping before the moons rise? You have afforded a meager telling this day.”

“We don’t like hearing the same propaganda from the Lord,” a haggard man shouted from the front row.

“I’m unaffiliated. Do you see any brand or mark on me? Am I crowned with a regal wig? You see before you a plain and bantling tale-smith. A weaver of dreams, untouched by avarice. I draw upon the texts of your ancestors, from the scrolls of Mongo to the papyrus of Tephrat. I bear the breath of demigods and the commands of vanished ages, news of distant war and far-off fable, unadorned and memorable.”

“Get on with it,” a rickety woman cried, hunching over a jar of pickles.

“Tell us about Metropolis Gig,” another demanded.

“You’ve probably never left Ghost Haven,” yet another cried.

“I have ascended the mountain separating this world from the next, and glimpsed Azimoth peak through the translucent floor of Heaven. I need not remind you: storytellers are born from ritual and belief, rites held sacred in the depths of the Weald. Holy monks chant sutras for years on end to conjure every one of the hairs on my luscious body. The wilderness was the womb from which I issued and grew. I have felt the bark of every tree and held communion with the dryads, all so I can regale you with Truth, Morality, and History in the dense depravity of this soulless region.”

“I believe you’ve just insulted us,” the man next to me interrupted. “My family has run a farm for twenty generations before the wheel of fate cast us down into poverty.”

“You’re probably a commoner from the Land of Animals,” another heckler said.

“Tell us the story of your travels.”

“I doubt you’ve heard of silver-haired Engwu.” He began: “In the beginning, the rocks and the seas were detached from the body of our Creator. The story of that schism is the basis of all other stories.

“Cast your mind back eight thousand years, and then cast it back eight thousand more. Cast it back through ages, past eight hundred generations. Four pillars were crushed beneath the weight of dying gods, who battled in the clouds, lighting the sky with clashing weapons. A hundred provinces were laid waste.

“Heaven reached to the farthest horizon, and pieces of Heaven fell, rotting on the way down. The parasites from the bodies of the immortals spread in the forms of fish and birds. Out of one god, blood flowed into rivers, which issued like waterfalls from his corpse. His long hair grew into vast trees, filling every corner of the world. From his eye sockets the sun and moons emerged, floating into the sky where they lived for all eternity in harmony.

“The gods were still hard at work, chiseling mountains into pleasing shapes and assigning the stars to their places. The lesser gods, in their boredom, fashioned men and women out of clay. Dragons and sea serpents devoured innocent people while the seas mountains and heaven spilled out endless rain.

“A great blacksmith, Uma, smelt the five elements into a tool to repair the floor of Heaven. First he chopped off the legs of the oldest turtle, fusing them to the pillars. The panicked masses shored up mounds of stone and wood, fortifying against the rising water, building towering aqueducts and pyramids. They prayed to Aini to open a massive hole in the ground to swallow all the water. But Aini was a trickster, and he opened a great hole in the floor of Heaven, letting out more celestial rain. This is the reason you see stone statues beneath the waves when you take your fishing boats past the shallows. When you go pearl-diving, open your eyes and see sunken colossi, sealed in stone.

“After this flood ceased, only two people remained. They happened to be a brother and sister who had washed ashore clinging to the intestines of the first giant, which fed them for life.

“The watery world was overrun with spirits. They had landed on our island. The mountain’s peak touched the floor of Heaven, and they knew they were in a holy place, so they set to work building a nation and spreading their heritage.

“They came upon three-toed footprints in the sand, which led them to tribes of animals. Through close study, they communicated and drew up treaties, establishing borders. Many heroes were born to combat the plague of demons, which rose like vapor from the cursed earth.

“Then palaces of white marble and gold rose and, in spite of the fearsome creatures protecting the heights of the Immortal Mountain, men sought higher and higher purchase, constructing bridges between high precipices, often perishing in midair to leave their projects for the next generation. Their ziggurats and gardens flowed up the mountainside, even as molten rock rushed to meet them. They spread like a fever upon the slope, and the gods looked down in amusement.

“Through meditation and training, men imitated the gods, learning the art of fishing, hunting, weapon making, fighting, silk weaving, and medicine. Writing was one of the last inventions to arise.

“Knowledge and magic spread far and wide. Some men sold their souls to demons, which ate them like candy, in exchange for forbidden arts. Men began the construction of vast and puzzling machines, which devoured infinite troves of resources to bring these vicious men still closer to the summit of the mountain. Man imitated birds and every other animal, until his body was more animal than man.”

“You are dressed as a storyteller, but you’re not fooling anybody, you monkey!” Someone behind me complained.

The baboon banged his gavel, waving his arms and making aggressive gestures with his bright lips.

“You are wrong. Storytellers accrue detail and nuance as they excavate divine truth. My life is composed of sifting bones and picking apart the whispers of the woods. Every breath of air is sustained by belief, balanced on a wheel upon which time flows like a stream. I am refreshing an old tale with new life. It’s my duty to adorn the maidenly body of our oral literature with new pearls.”

“Get to the point!”

“Within every dream and myth are buried the fundamental truths. You must live and work out the meaning yourselves. It is not left to me to explain it to you. Here is the tale of Silver-Haired Engwu.”

* * *

Once there were two lovers in a faraway land. They met weekly beneath the paulownia tree. After several months, they were caught sleeping together. Both were married, but to different people.

The one who caught them was the woman’s brother. He was so overcome with shame that he cut the heads off the lovers while they slept and tied their hair together. Then he hung the two heads from the village gate.

Another man came by and glanced with horror at the two heads and asked the woman’s brother about them, since he stood nearby.

“What’s the meaning of this? Was it you who killed them?”

“Yes.”

“What did they do to deserve such a fate? That’s General Engwu’s son, and that other head belongs to the village chief’s daughter.”

“You have reason to be alarmed. I caught them sleeping together, and I dealt with them myself. That is my own sister’s head.”

“You monster. You punish your own sister so cruelly? Why not call the magistrate and deal with them properly?”

“Was there any need when their guilt was clearly established?”

“Only the gods know who among us are guilty.”

“Would you have me sew their heads back on and pretend nothing happened?”

“No, but take them down. You’ll disgrace the whole family.”

“I would rather end the disgrace with this display than let the infamy continue into the next generation.”

“What is the meaning of this?” said another man, approaching.

The woman’s brother explained the situation.

“That is unconscionable,” the new man said. “Do you not realize that is my brother’s head hanging there?

“If you are truly his brother, why have I not met you?” the other asked.

“This is my first day in town, returning from the War of Seven Nations. And I fear I haven’t spilled the sum total of blood I am destined to spill.”

The two men drew their swords. Five minutes later, a third head was added to the gate. It was the head of the woman’s brother.

Sensing a ruckus in the town square, the village chief, General Gin, stepped out of his palace and confronted the victor. “A man should not mete out justice, for justice shall find him in turn. If I killed you, who would arrive five minutes later to take revenge on me?”

“I believe my father, General Engwu, would serve vengeance.”

“The entirety of our clans will be wiped out, if we walk down this path any further. I have a solution. As you can see, two heads from the Gin clan hang there, and only one from the Engwu clan. There is a statue of you in front of the palace. If I can strike off the head of that statue in one blow, we shall count it as a head of Engwu and our feud will end. If I should fail, I will chop off my hair and leave this city, never to return, taking the orders of monkhood in a faraway land.”

“I see the wisdom in your plan and agree.”

A propitious day from the almanac was chosen for the contest, and every resident gathered to witness the display of swordsmanship. All knew that younger Engwu was a decorated soldier, and that the statue was made of solid bronze, the neck being more than half-meter thick.

The families of Engwu and Gin were assembled on the steps, exchanging bets.

“My sword has tasted the blood of a hundred warriors,” young Engwu said. “And I have trained for twenty years, cutting through eight thousand bamboo stalks. After this final act, I will mend my ways forever and spend my remaining years copying out the sacred texts in the revered temple to the West.”

The spectators cheered. Engwu spent five hours gathering energy with his hand poised on his pommel. His breaths stirred the branches of dawn redwoods. In his low chant, barbarian words could be detected. The murmuring crowd suggested that he was calling on the evil forces of a thousand demons, for it would take that much strength to decapitate the statue in one blow.

After long hours, most of the townsfolk went home, believing that Engwu had become a statue himself, content to wait out eternity in his meditation. Only the two chiefs of the clans remained, true exemplars of patience.

Finally, Enwgu unleashed all of his pent-up energy, striking the statue like a tsunami. The head blasted away and ricocheted off the floor of Heaven, falling like a glinting star into the sea.

Every citizen appeared from their home again to view the accomplished feat and cheered. The family members of both clans embraced one another. But no one dared approach the youngest Engwu, for his hair had grown one meter in length and turned the color of polished silver. His face was cut through with the etchings of a hundred years. When they finally pressed a finger to his shoulder, he evaporated into a dense cloud of spirit, suffusing the air with golden light and rich perfume.

And that is why he is forever known as Silver-Haired Engwu.