Lord Qiu Wenda, when he was about to die, said to his family:
“I am the water god of Swallow Rock, and I am now to take up my post again. After I die, when you carry my coffin to Jiangxi you are bound to pass this rock. There is a temple of Lord Guan there; go and draw a lot. If it is the third lot of the highest grade, then I am water god still. If it is not, perhaps I have been censured and reduced, and cannot resume the post.”
Having said this, he died.
His family heard it and half believed it, but one old servant believed him firmly and said: “My lord was born to the Lady Wang. The lady was of Jiangning by origin, and when she crossed the river she prayed for a son at the water god’s temple at Swallow Rock. That night she dreamed that a man in robe and tablet came to her and said: I give you a son, and a good son along with him. And in a little over a year my lord was born.”
Lord Qiu’s wife, the Lady Xiong, carried the coffin home. When they reached Swallow Rock they did as he had told them and drew a lot in the temple of Lord Guan, and there was indeed the third lot. The whole household wept aloud, and burnt paper money until it covered the river, and set up a wooden spirit tablet beside the temple. Beside it stands a slab bearing a poem by Lord Yin Wenduan.
When I was going to Suzhou I was held up by the wind at this very place, so I bowed to his tablet and wrote on the wall:
Moored along the bank at Swallow Rock, I pass beneath the Huanggong wine-shop. I rub my hand over the old inscription and grieve for these hills and rivers. My short hair is grizzled white as snow; the long river runs off into faint waves. If the river god has any knowledge of me, he ought to send me a good deal of fair wind.
The next day there was a great fair wind indeed.
