There is a very old legend from China that a wolf turned into a man. It starts off in the Phoenix Mountains of Shandong Province in China. This was during ancient times and in the mountain was a stone house where a priest lived as a hermit. He had a friend, a wolf companion, who defended the priest from dangers. Also the priest valued the mountain and cared for the wildlife and vegetation, regarding it as a sacred place.
The wolf is unusual in the legend as it was able to read, and knew and understood the writings of sacred texts. It wanted to be physically human. Whilst roaming the mountain, the wolf was starving and asked the god of the mountain for food. The mountain god led wolf to the river and a village. Wolf was thirsty and approached the river when an elderly blind man appeared. Wolf attacked him, until the man pleaded for mercy, and this made the wolf feel bad and leave. Later on, more hungry, wolf asked the mountain god for help to locate food.
The mountain god showed the way, down the mountain to a valley where a woman and a small child were. Wolf attacked the woman and then lifted the child in its jaws. The woman screamed and begged the wolf to stop and spare their lives. Feeling guilty, the wolf let go of the child and returned up the mountain slope. Even more hungry, the wolf passed away in its sleep.
Out of the wolf's compassion, it was soon reincarnated as a human baby boy. Also the mountain god died and reincarnated as a yellow wolf cub. Years passed by when the two characters met up again. A grown man, who was a wolf in his previous life, became a priest of the temple and then he encountered a wild yellow wolf, that used to be a mountain god. After meeting, observing that the wolf had become a man as well as a priest and a master, the yellow wolf was angry, as he had once been a mountain god. Yellow wolf felt despair and rage. Then the yellow wolf was so humiliated and belittled by it that he ended his own life.
She Wolf Night
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