THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
The 'Classic of the Western Mountains' places this bird on Mount Yiwang: 'shaped like a crow, with three heads and six tails, and given to laughter; its name is Qitu. Worn on the body, it keeps a person from nightmares, and it can also ward off evil.' The character yan in the formula is read as 'nightmare' — so a perpetually laughing, three-headed prodigy serves, of all things, as a charm for quiet sleep, one of the pleasant inversions in the book's logic of omens and virtues.
The 'Classic of the Northern Mountains' records another Qitu on Mount Dai: crow-like but five-colored with red markings, 'both male and female in one body', and a preventive against abscesses when eaten. The two share nothing but the name, and commentators treat them as distinct creatures.
The Qitu shares Mount Yiwang with the Huan, a one-eyed, three-tailed beast whose cry holds a hundred voices. The last mountain of the guideway grows no plants at all, yet houses the most extravagantly shaped bird and beast in the classic, and illustrated editions have traditionally drawn the pair into a single mountainscape.
