THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
The 'Classic of the Western Mountains' notes of Mount Sanwei only that 'the three azure birds dwell there' on a mountain 'a hundred li around'; Guo Pu explains that these are the birds who fetch food for the Queen Mother of the West, roosting here when off duty. The 'Classic of Regions Within the Seas: North' shows them at work — 'south of the Queen Mother, three azure birds fetch her food' — and the 'Classic of the Great Wilderness: West' names them: Dali, Shaoli, and Qingniao, red-headed and black-eyed.
From Han times onward the birds turned from cooks into couriers. In the Han Wudi Gushi, on the seventh day of the seventh month an azure bird flies in from the west and settles before the palace hall; Dongfang Shuo announces that the Queen Mother is coming, and presently she arrives with two azure birds flanking her. Tang poets fixed the motif for good — after Li Shangyin's line 'azure bird, be diligent and spy out the way for me', the word qingniao has simply meant 'messenger' in literary Chinese.
Their mountain is traditionally identified with the Sanwei hills southeast of Dunhuang, across the valley from the Mogao caves; they share it with the man-eating white ox Aohen.
