The ''Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang'' () is a book written by Duan Chengshi in the 9th century. It focuses on

miscellany A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim ...

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

and foreign legends and hearsay, reports on natural phenomena, short anecdotes, and tales of the wondrous and mundane, as well as notes on such topics as medicinal herbs and

tattoo A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several Process of tatt ...

s. ''Youyang'' refers to the south slope of ''Mount You'', a small hill located in what is now Huaihua, Hunan. The book is divided into 30 volumes, containing unusually varied content in over thirteen hundred entries that describe the world that Duan Chengshi heard about, read of, or personally observed. Several tales from the volume are quoted in the

Taiping Guangji The ''Taiping Guangji'' (), sometimes translated as the ''Extensive Records of the Taiping Era'', or ''Extensive Records of the Taiping Xinguo Period'', is a collection of stories compiled in the early Song dynasty. The work was completed in 978 ...

. The ''

Ye Xian "Ye Xian" (; ) is a Chinese fairy tale that is similar to the European Cinderella story, the Malay-Indonesian Bawang Putih Bawang Merah tale, the Vietnamese Tấm Cám story, and stories from other ethnic groups including the Tibetans and the ...

'', a story similar to the fairy tale ''

Cinderella "Cinderella",; french: link=no, Cendrillon; german: link=no, Aschenputtel) or "The Little Glass Slipper", is a folk tale with thousands of variants throughout the world.Dundes, Alan. Cinderella, a Casebook. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsi ...

'', appears in Chapter 21. The story was allegedly told by Duan's servant Li Shiyuan, a native from what is now

Nanning Nanning (; ; za, Namzningz) is the capital and largest city by population of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. It is known as the "Green City" because of its abundance of lush subtropical foliage. Located in the South of ...

. It is set during the late 3rd century BC. The exact location is unknown, but the most likely candidate is

Guangxi Guangxi (; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Kwanghsi; ; za, Gvangjsih, italics=yes), officially the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the People's Republic ...

, where the shoe eventually found its way to a king from an island.

References

* * *Reed, Carrie E. (2003). ''A Tang Miscellany: An Introduction to Youyang zazu''. New York: Peter Lang Inc. Chinese prose texts Chinese mythology Tang dynasty literature 9th-century Chinese books {{China-hist-book-stub