THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
From Mount Yuci the River Qi rises and flows north into the Wei; oaks grow on its heights and arrow-bamboo below. Its bird is the Tuofei: 'shaped like an owl, with a human face and one leg; it appears in winter and lies dormant in summer; wear it, and you will not fear thunder.' Some editions write the second character of the name differently.
Waking in winter and sleeping through summer inverts the ordinary rhythm of hibernation, an anomaly the text is careful to flag. The thunder-charm belongs to the classic's standard grammar of worn virtues — as the Huan worn on the body cures jaundice and the Qitu bars nightmares — and the logic is neatly self-consistent: thunder is a creature of summer, and a bird that sleeps all summer makes the fitting amulet against it. The same mountain houses the Xiao, a long-armed ape-like beast and expert thrower.
Human face, single leg, proof against lightning: the combination endeared the Tuofei to generations of illustrators, who usually draw it as a human-faced owl balanced one-legged on a branch.
