183 Beijing Operas - Peacock - Number 253

Peacock

Beijing Opera - "Hundred-Grass Mountain"

Peacock with a green symbolic face is a supernatural in the opera "Hundred-Grass Mountain." The opera is based on a legend called "The Lotus in the Alms Bowl." A she-monster of Hundred-Grass Mountain transforms herself into a woman and goes to Wang Family Village with a magic bowl as a weapon. The Goddess of Mercy, hearing of this, sends an earth god to the village disguised as a pot mender. The monster comes to him with her bowl and asks him to mend it, but he deliberately drops it and breaks it, depriving the monster of her weapon. The Goddess now sends Peacock together with a roc, a parrot and other heavenly warriors to the village and they exterminate the Monster.