Dong Yong

Touched by his filial piety, a celestial maiden (usually identified as the Seventh Fairy in modern times) came to Earth, married him and changed his fortunes.

Dong Yong was possibly a real person from the Han dynasty (202 BC – 220 AD), and a pictorial relief bearing his name has been found in the second-century site of Wu Family Shrines in Shandong Province.

[2] Due to local belief that Dong hailed from their place, the city of Xiaogan in Hubei Province derived its name from his story.

Under the xiaolian system initiated in 134 BC, candidates for offices were nominated based on their filial piety, which were often displayed through lavish funerals and mourning rituals.

[19] By late imperial times the need to avoid infidelity on the part of Weaver Girl resulted in some versions presenting Dong Yong as an incarnation of the Cowherd Boy.

A more efficient solution was to separate the two tales: Dong Yong's Weaver Girl became identified with the youngest of the Seven Fairies (as in Weaving Brocade,[18]) whose eldest sister married the Cowherd.

Once the legend was adapted for the stage, however, the conventions of chuanqi plays of the Ming and Qing, as a form of opera, required that the male and female protagonists be given equal opportunity to declare their mutual love in song.

"The Shady Scholartree" (槐蔭記) is a wange (挽歌, a quyi or narrative singing genre performed during funerals) from Hunan Province and dated to the final years of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).

[25] In 1953, Lu Hongfei (陆洪非, also known as Hong Fei 洪非) from Anhui Province came up with a new Huangmei opera version of the Dong Yong legend.

When Jade Emperor notices her absence, he demands her return; the Seventh Fairy reluctantly obeys him to save Dong Yong's life.

Class struggle, the new concern of the times, was also emphasized by turning Squire Fu into an evil landlord and Dong Yong into an exploited peasant.

[28] (The 1963 Hong Kong film A Maid from Heaven (七仙女) starring Ivy Ling Po as Dong Yong is also a Huangmei opera adaptation of this tale.

One day, after seeing a painful birth by a buffalo (or goat), a distressed Dong Yong promises his mother that he will not eat her body after her death.