Tradition / Region: Chinese mythology
Alternate Names: —
Category: Cow, Mountain dweller
The Myth
Far to the west, beyond the reach of familiar roads, rises Three-Dangers Mountain, a place long feared by travelers. The mountain spans a hundred li around, and its three peaks are known to shelter beings both strange and deadly.
There lives a monster called Aoyin.
Its body is shaped like that of an ox, yet its hide is white as bone. Four horns rise from its head, and its body is covered in long, coarse hair like straw woven into rain capes. Though it bears the form of cattle, Aoyin is no gentle beast. It feeds on human flesh, preying on those who cross the mountain or linger too long beneath its peaks.
Three Green Birds are also said to dwell upon Three-Dangers Mountain. In later times they would be known as divine messengers, but here they share the heights with the man-eating Aoyin, marking the mountain as a place where sacred forces and mortal peril exist side by side.
Some say that Three-Dangers Mountain was also a land of exile. After rebelling against the ancient ruler Shun, the Three-Sprouts People were driven there and cast out to the edge of the world. Surrounded by barren land and deadly creatures, they disappeared from history.
Thus Aoyin became the living terror of Three-Dangers Mountain—a white, four-horned ox-beast that devours humans, standing as a warning that not all creatures shaped like cattle are meant to sustain life.
Gallery
Sources
Strassberg, R. E. (2002). A Chinese bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. Univ of California Press, p. 112.
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Aoyin