List of supernatural beings in Chinese folklore

The list includes creatures from ancient classics (such as the Discourses of the States, Classic of Mountains and Seas, and In Search of the Supernatural) literature from the Gods and Demons genre of fiction, (for example, the Journey to the West, and Investiture of the Gods), as well as works from the Records of the Strange genre (for example Pu Songling's Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio and What the Master Would Not Discuss).

This list contains supernatural beings who are inherently "evil" or that tend towards malevolence, such as ghosts and demons, hobgoblins and sprites, and even some ambivalent deities.

The Aoyin (傲因)[4] is a man-eating humanoid monster of the desolate Western regions, described as having a very long tongue, sharp claws, and wearing tattered clothes.

The Daolaogui often appears accompanied by strong winds and heavy rain, possibly because they want to hide their voice, which sounds like a grown man roaring.

The Fang Liang (方良) are demonic, necrophagic creatures that break into tombs to consume the brains of the dead and which can be killed by twigs of the arborvitae.

The Rites of Zhou describes the role Fang Xiang Shi, a kind of government-appointed ritual specialist as being to exorcise these creatures or drive them away.

Sometimes regarded as a demon with an undeveloped sexuality, and responsible for haunting houses and ruins, as well as afflicting children with epilepsy and inducing miscarriage.

The popular imagination may have been fueled in part by the underground presence of suppressed or outlawed fox spirit cults and other heterodox forms of spirituality in the Song dynasty.

De Groot describes them as follows: "they greatly occupy credulous and superstitious minds in Amoy [Xiamen, Fujian]... there and in the surrounding country, they are deemed to be produced by the sun and moon shining on uncoffined human remains still unburied."

They feature in Pu Song Ling's tale "The Raksha Country and the Sea Market" as hideous beings that possess standards of beauty antithetical to that of the Chinese world, and whose society the protagonist has to cope with.

[31] Held by villagers as being responsible for the phenomenon of deadly mass hysteria or ultimately fatal delirium amongst the young and unmarried female population of Western Hunan in ancient China.

Psychologists today regard the phenomenon as the result of mass mental illness caused by either social pressure or frustration of the deep-seated need to find a spouse.

[36] The Pipagui often gather in tropical where there the climate is humid, poisonous insects, snakes and ants were plenty, causing malaria to be widespread in the area.

Historically, the gathering places of the Dai people were generally located in tropical rain forests, where the climate was humid, and the poisonous insects, snakes and ants were inundated, causing malaria to be widespread in the area, and medical conditions were limited at that time.

[39] In Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, there is a tale of a black hand attempting to drag a rice merchant and his ox down into Yellow Mud Canal.

De Groot observes the superstition arising as an attempt to rationalize unexplained drownings or difficulties in the water: "should a corpse be found in the silt, its arms or legs worked deep into the mud, everyone is sure to believe it is a victim of a water-ghost, drawn down by those limbs with irresistible force.

"[40] According to tradition, being unable to reincarnate, they lurk in the place where they died, drag unsuspecting victims underwater, drowning them to take possession of their bodies.

Yen Hui, a disciple of Confucius, is described as having slain a spectre by grabbing it by the hips, causing it to change into a snake, whereupon he killed it by stabbing it with his sword.

[45] There is a historical record of a 22-year-old youth in 376 AD who became a tiger-like being and in a deranged mental state, devoured large numbers of people, ultimately dying of hunger in prison whilst awaiting execution.

[46] A being in Chinese mythology similar to the Feng (封) or Shirou (視肉)[37] that may have been derived from an accidental encounter with a sea cucumber.

The alchemist Ge Hong describes being slain by a wang liang as one of the hazards facing unwary or stupid travelers of mountain valleys.

The term "chi mei wang liang" (魅魅魍魎) means all kinds of demons, goblins and ghouls and is used as a metaphor for bad people in general.

In the Records of the Tripods of Xia, the Wang Xiang (罔象) is described as having the form of a three-year old child with red eyes, long black hair, and claws that is able to escape fetters to "find its (human) food".

Unlike Western lycanthropes, these are beings are not "sudden and impetuous, artless and clumsy", but is a "deceitful were-specter par excellence", per De Groot.

An ape-like being dwelling in the mountains, with a human face, a hair-covered body, reversed heels and a tendency to laugh loudly.

Earth-traversing Yaksha (地行夜叉) are described as having flaming eyebrows, being several meters in height, and having a strange half-moon formation in between their eyes.

In some tales, these ghosts approach living people and attempt to communicate with them in order to lead them to clues or pieces of evidence that point out that they died wrongful deaths.

Anthropologists posit that the legend originates from the actual encounter between early Chinese settlers and the stigmatized aboriginal tribes they found in the southern parts of the country who may have engaged in cannibalism.

These dolls usually come in pairs – one male and one female – and are sometimes called jin tong yu nü (Chinese: 金童玉女; pinyin: jīn tóng yù nǚ; lit.

[70] In the Journey to the West, seven spider demons capable of assuming the form of lovely maidens and of shooting webs from their navels reside in Silkweb Cave.