The Waiting Maid’s Parrot
“The Waiting Maid’s Parrot” by Hao Ko Tzu, from Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Folklore Series), translated by Moss Roberts.
A young girl is serving as a maid in a great household, and the master favors her, which is bad news for her because it means that he plans to make her his concubine. She feels shame over this but has no power to escape the fate.
She’s given the job of caring for a prize parrot, though, and it turns out this parrot is no ordinary parrot. It makes promises, and it promises this young maid a proper husband.
The bird escapes and goes out searching the countryside for a husband. She finds just the right guy and starts passing messages back and forth between him and the young maid. Meanwhile, there’s much jealousy on the part of the other maids, and they start to spread petty gossip about her being involved with a man.
The master beats the girl nearly to death and buries her still alive. The bird gets killed trying to deliver messages. The lover sees a vision in his dream and finds out that the bird is the sister of the young maid from a former lifetime. He also finds out that his love is still alive, and he goes to rescue her and somehow he manages to both marry her and keep her hidden from her former master with murderous intentions.
It’s a Chinese version of a princess story with past lives and visionary dreams and animal communion and all sorts of wonders.