Home Guilin tour story: the name of the “Yang” Dike
Guilin tour story: the name of the “Yang” Dike
The Yang Dike is a scenic beside the Li River shore where always gathered many tourists in Guilin tour. There are neither rows of green tender poplars, nor gentle willows, and why is it named Yang (it means poplar in Chinese)? It turns out that this name comes from two local mountains: the Cavel Hill and the Trotter Hill.
Talking about the origin of these two hills, there’s an explanation in Guilin.
It was a long time ago. A huge goat demon appeared in this place. It was as large as a mountain, so its appetite was naturally very large. It could eat up several miles of grass in only one night. And after the grass ran over, it started to eat crops and vegetable unceremoniously, which made those peasants quite worried. When the Jade Emperor knew it, he sent the Mighty Miracle God to subdue this goat demon.
This goat demon was actually very clever. When it heard that the Mighty Miracle God was coming, it hastened to hide deep in the cave, so that the Mighty Miracle God could not find it.
But the Mighty Miracle God had his own way. He knew the goat was always greedy, and could not stay in the dark cave for long. So he created a large field with green seedlings all over, and then blew the smell into the cave before he turned himself into a small tree beside the field.
This method really worked. The goat demon was already starving after several days’ hiding, so after it smelt the fragrance of these seedlings, it craned his neck out of the cave to see if someone was there. When it found that the Mighty Miracle God was not there, it was so happy and rushed in the field eating those seedlings.
Just at this time, the Mighty Miracle God appeared and rebuked the goat: "How dare you goat demon destroy the crops. Do you admit your impingement?"
The goat demon was surprised and some scared, but it counted on its ability and said loudly:” You want to fight? Do not think I'm afraid of you?"
The Mighty Miracle God got raged and drew his sword out cutting off a leg of the goat before it even knew. Thus the goat demon got raged too, and it rushed towards the Mighty Miracle God with its two horns like two peaks. The Mighty Miracle God sneered several times and then cut these two horns off with his sword. The goat demon was extremely painful and rolled on the ground. The Mighty Miracle God started to pity it as he saw this, which stopped him from killing it at once. The goat knew that it would not avail against the Mighty Miracle God, so it escaped for save itself.
Since then, two hills appeared in this place. One is the Cavel Hill turned from the horns and the other one is the Trotter Hill turned from the trotter. In Guilin dialect, the "sheep hoof" and "poplar dike" pronounce in the same way----“yang ti”, and later generations thought the "sheep hoof" was too vulgar, so they changed the name of this place to the Poplar Dike in order to live up to the beautiful landscape here.
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