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A Beheaded Person Purchased Needlework To Seam Himself Up

王泥喜法介

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This is an old story in Beijing, which is believed to happen in the 19th century.

A few decades ago, a tailor managed a shop around the south gate of ancient Beijing City. This tailor was so skilful and friendly, so his shop was famous in Beijing.

One day, in the middle night, the tailor just went to bed but someone was calling him at this time. The tailor asked the visitor what he wanted while the visitor said he just wanted to buy some needles and strings. This tailor was afraid that the visitor was probably a robber, so this tailor just opened a small window and handed the needles and strings out. At this point, the tailor attempted to see the customer's face but merely found there was a bracelet in the wrist of the customer. Afterwards, the customer paid and left, and the tailor also returned to his bed soon.

Next day, some customers visited the tailor's shop and discussed a story. In their words, a culprit who had been beheaded disappeared last night for a while. Surprisingly, when the body of the culprit was found, his head and main body were seamed together already. Also, the body was holding some needles and strings. Some people distinguished that these needles and strings were sold by this tailor, so they came here to inquire the tailor whether anything strange happened last night. This tailor dubitated and then came to see the body of the culprit. At the first glance, the tailor saw his needles and strings and then he saw there was a same bracelet he saw last night in the body's wrist.

The tailor was out of his mind and then narrated what happened to his neighbourhood, a doctor who owned a pharmacy. After hearing the scary story last night, this doctor was not surprised but responded calmly "my friend, it is not a big deal. Every month, a few poor guys would visit my pharmacy to buy some vulnerary in the midnight, as well as the man you meet yesterday."
 
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Yup, had to look up "vulnerary" too! Good story though - I can't think of any equivalent "western" story. Other than headless ghosts, but that's an entirely different thing really.
 
This is an interesting story - all the more interesting for being told from the perspective of the tailor, and hence reminiscent of the Fortean incidents we like.

The notion of a beheaded person re-attaching his / her own head (or even having it re-attached by someone else) seemed vaguely familiar. I spent some time searching for similar scenarios (including searching through folklore and fairy tale indices), but found nothing even close.

The closest analogue I found would be the legends of cephalophores - beheaded Christian martyrs (e.g., St. Denis) who remained animated and spoke through their severed heads until they finally collapsed and died.

Because the tailor's midnight visitor was claimed to have already been beheaded, I suppose he could be construed as a cephalophore.
 
This is an interesting story - all the more interesting for being told from the perspective of the tailor, and hence reminiscent of the Fortean incidents we like.

The notion of a beheaded person re-attaching his / her own head (or even having it re-attached by someone else) seemed vaguely familiar. I spent some time searching for similar scenarios (including searching through folklore and fairy tale indices), but found nothing even close.

The closest analogue I found would be the legends of cephalophores - beheaded Christian martyrs (e.g., St. Denis) who remained animated and spoke through their severed heads until they finally collapsed and died.

Because the tailor's midnight visitor was claimed to have already been beheaded, I suppose he could be construed as a cephalophore.
My friend, you must be a doctor in Comparative Literature(*^_^*)
 
This is an interesting story - all the more interesting for being told from the perspective of the tailor, and hence reminiscent of the Fortean incidents we like.

The notion of a beheaded person re-attaching his / her own head (or even having it re-attached by someone else) seemed vaguely familiar. I spent some time searching for similar scenarios (including searching through folklore and fairy tale indices), but found nothing even close.

The closest analogue I found would be the legends of cephalophores - beheaded Christian martyrs (e.g., St. Denis) who remained animated and spoke through their severed heads until they finally collapsed and died.

Because the tailor's midnight visitor was claimed to have already been beheaded, I suppose he could be construed as a cephalophore.

There is the Hindu deity Sri Ganesha, portrayed in various traditions as the son of Parvati, whose head was struck off and then replaced by that of an elephant. One common version, paraphrased from tradition at http://www.biodiversityofindia.org/index.php?title=How_Lord_Ganesha_got_his_elephant_head reads

"Parvati the wife of Lord Shiva was alone at home and wanted to have a bath. To guard the entrance, Parvati created a human child - Ganesha - out of the earth and asked him to guard the entrance while she took a bath. While Parvati was bathing, Lord Shiva came to the scene and wanted to enter the house. However Ganesha blocked him from entering saying that it was his mother's orders not to allow anyone inside. Enraged, Lord Shiva cut off Ganesha's head and entered the house. Parvati, upon learning this, was overcome with grief. Upon learning that Ganesha was his own son, Lord Shiva felt sad too. Parvati then asked Lord Shiva to go down the Himalayas (their abode), cut off the head of the first animal he sees and splice it onto the headless body of Ganesha. The first animal Lord Shiva found was an elephant and that is how Lord Ganesha came to have the elephant's head and thus, infinite wisdom. "
 
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