法苑珠林 63.41

63.41

During the Zhongping reign era of the Han, there was a creature living in the waters of the Changjiang whose name was the *yu*, also called the short fox. It could hold sand in its mouth to shoot at humans. Those struck by it would suffer tense sinews, headache, and fever, and in severe cases would die. When the people of the river suppressed it with ritual arts, they would find sand and gravel in its belly. This is what the *Classic of Poetry* refers to by: “To be a ghost or a *yu* is impossible.” Nowadays, it is colloquially called the “ravine poison.” Earlier Confucian scholars believed that it was generated from the foul vapors when men and women of the south bathed together in the same river.