Hou Yi and the Ten Suns

I took this picture from Dragons, Gods & Spirits from Chinese Mythology. This is Hou Yi, one of the few legendary Chinese heroes I know and one of the few I liked. This illustrates the story of his mission to free the earth from the ten suns that were turning it into a oven. He had to shoot down nine of them with his arrows, then to fight the monsters which were roaming the earth due to the heatwave. You can read one version of the story here. In a way, Yi is like the Chinese version of Herakles.  Don't know why I blog about him today, maybe because I don't like heat and long days, so Hou Yi is my kind of hero. Maybe because this image is beautiful and elegant yet has a subdued violence. Yi is killing the suns there. And maybe because I am about to finish reading the book and wanted to share one of its lush images that bring the stories to life.