The Gate Gods — A Chinese Legend

It is said that long ago there grew a peach forest. The king of the peach trees shaded two stone huts in which lived two brothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei. Both of them were so strong that in front of them lions would bend down their heads, leopards shivered at them and tigers gave in entirely to promise to serve as guards in the forest. And the two brothers lived there on the peaches.

In the Northeast of Mount Duso, there lived a monster which was said the son of a spirit of a bull. By right of the uncommon strength, it made itself the king of that area. When it heard that the delicious peaches on the mountain of Duso were magic in turning an evil into a god, he couldn’t wait to go there. Of course, the monster was refused absolutely by the brothers. The monster was so angry that he led more than 300 ghosts to fight against the brothers. After a fierce fight, the monster was defeated completely and ran away. But the monster wouldn’t bury its axe. In the dark, he sent a few of the strongest ghosts to attack the brothers’ huts. Though the ghosts appeared with blue faces, long buckteeth and dark red eyes, the brothers were very calm and they determined to give them a hard blow. The elder brother fought ahead with a hard stem of a tree and the younger followed with a strong reed rope. When the brother beat down one of the ghosts, the younger would tie it hard and put it into the mouth of a tiger. The bothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei, won the battle at that night and the ghosts never dared to annoy them again.

Thus, the reputation of the brothers was spread quickly around the area, and they also helped a lot of people in the area. Many years later, when the bothers died, people thought they had got into the Heaven and became gods there and served as guards by the gate of the Heaven. Because the gate gods were once lived in the peach forest, people thought the branches of peach trees were full of magic. So it began to get popular for people to hang a peach board with the bothers’ names on it on each side of their door pinning their hope for peace on the two giants. When paper was used, a picture of them was put up instead of those peach boards.

(Source: chineseculture.about.com)

I’ll try to draw it.

I was reading something when an idea sprung into my head. A new landscape drawing idea. It just came, the image was clear, I know what to put on every corner of the sketchpad. I don’t know if I have seen the same image before but here’s a creative description:

There was a single row of slim pine trees across the open space, covering almost half of the image. I could tell that it was almost sunset, even though the image was black and white, for the brightness focused at the left. Not a trace of clouds can be found, or even birds that flew to retreat for the night. Grasses — maybe reaching up to the knees carpeted the ground, with the occasional sprouts of wild flowers. Farther back, more pine trees stood still, creating a dark shade below them, stretching deep into the forest.

Can you imagine it? :/ I’ll try to draw it later. This’ll serve as reference in case I forget.

I’ve created towns, villages, hamlets, and kingdoms. Not to mention continents, countries, forests, mountains, and other places where all kinds of adventure can be found. It’s the best part of writing a fantasy story.

I just have to share it. :D