Lady Xiu

Lady Xiu (Chinese: 女脩; pinyin: Nǚxiū; lit. 'Lady of Cultivation'), formerly romanized as Lady Hsiu, is a figure in Chinese mythology.

In the Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Qian's account of the origin of the House of Ying states that she became pregnant with Ye the Great after eating the egg of a black bird (玄鸟)[1][2] sometimes identified as a swallow.[3] This story closely parallels another, told about the origin of the Shang dynasty.[4] Her grandson Fei the Great (later titled Boyi) was reckoned as the ancestor of the ruling houses of Qin and Zhao during the Spring & Autumn and Warring States periods of Chinese history.[1][2]

References
  1. Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian, 《秦本纪第五》 ["Annals of Qin, Part Five"]. Guoxue, 2003. Accessed 11 Dec 2013. (in Chinese)
  2. Sima Qian. Records of the Grand Historian translated by William Nienhauser as The Grand Scribe's Records: The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China, "The Ch‘in, Basic Annals 5", p. 87 Indiana University Press, 1994. Accessed 11 Dec 2013. (in English)
  3. Lao Gan. Shiji Jinzhu, p. 102. Op. cit. in Nienhauser (1994), p. 87.
  4. Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction, "The Founding Myth of the Shang", pp. 251 ff. Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore), 1999. ISBN 0801861837. Accessed 11 Dec 2013.
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