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committed suicide'.... "This spirit, honoured at Foochow under the name of Wu Tai Yuan Shuai is the same as Lei Hai-Ch'ing (*) of the T'ang dynasty worshipped in several cities in Fukien. The character Hsieh (), crab, has approximately the same sound locally as Hai () the sea, and the willow branches symbolize Verdure, Ch'ing (†). Lei Hai-Ch'ing was a musician and is popularly referred to in the district as Marshal. He died cursing robbers, and for that reason temples were erected to him. Thus the young scholar become apotheosized owing to this play on words having the same or similar sounds. He is represented as attended by two male and two female instrumentalists holding respectively a mandolin, a lute, a violin and a tambourine. To evoke the spirit, his image is placed on a raised platform, its forehead is dabbed with red, it is prayed to and candles and incense burnt before it. The priests kneel in front of it, and then rise, skipping about with dishevelled hair and staring eyes. Crying out that the Spirit has come they scratch their tongues and write charms with the blood. When incense has been lit in the four corners of the room everyone can ask the spirit for what he wants, and the answer is explained by the accompanying musicians. He is frequently prayed to remove abscesses, boils etc. from children'.
I can confirm the latter from medium practices in Singapore, and looking back to the sighting in Ipoh referred to earlier he is also a deity worshipped for a cure for mental diseases in children.
The following legends were told to me by devotees :—
a) Tien is the deification of a rich patron of actors in Foochow city (or Soochow) who lived in the fifteenth century. b) As a handsome child, the youngest son of three, he constantly played pranks on others. An ugly sister-in-law in a fit of pique drew a crab around his open mouth whilst he was asleep, and as a result his soul which had left his body to roam was unable to return. He complained to the Jade Emperor (1) who out of pity adopted him and allowed his soul to inhabit his body again. His mouth was open, incidentally, because he was an unwanted child, thrown out as a babe and suckled by animals!
c) Prince T'ien of Foochow lived for pleasure. He was once sleeping with the wife of a local businessman and awoke to
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