Ancient Chinese Mythology is a mixture of folktales and beliefs used by the Chinese to pass on history, religion and teach proper behavior. It arose by people trying to explain many of the natural forces, promote their gods, and for entertainment. There are Emperors and beggars, gods and demons, and a variety of mythological creatures!

Dragons are a common theme in Ancient Chinese Mythology. Unlike the European Dragons, these are usually wise; they don’t fly using wings (they were magically lifted) and accounted for a wide range of functions. Water was always associated with dragons. One dragon tried to hold all the water in the world in his belly and it took a warrior to find him and cut open his stomach, causing a great flood that almost destroyed the world!

While the dragons symbolized male traits, the Chinese Mythology also told of the Phoenix, which was considered female. The Phoenix was a bird that lived for 500 to over 1000 years and then would build a house of wood and burn itself up, only to rise again from the ashes.

And then there were the Eight Immortals. These are believed by some to be based upon actual characters from Chinese history. They started off as normal, mortal people, but through various means obtained immortality. It is an interesting mixture of Royalty, beggars, prostitutes and scholars. They were not gods, but humans and often did silly things or even tried tricking the gods, thus the wife of one got turned into a greedy three legged frog looking for money.

As for actual Chinese gods and the associated myths? One website, www.godchecker.com lists over 154 gods with over 400 different spellings of the names. There was Pan Gu who created the world. Nv Wa (a goddess) was Pan Gu’s co-worker who created humans and marriage, as well as musical instruments. Of course Fuxi helped Nv Wa and was the father of the Chinese people, his descendents became the emperors and he taught about weaving and fishing (plus made string instruments). Kua Fu was a god who chased the sun showing determination. Chenghuang was a town temple god and usually based upon some one important from the area.

There have been books written about Ancient Chinese Mythology and this short article is but touching a small tip of the mass of information available. The aforementioned website will give you an overview of the gods and there are several others. If you want something for reading for young children, I recommend Tales from China by Cyril Birch (Oxford Press).