Legend of the White Snake

Legend of the White Snake
Image from the Summer Palace, Beijing, China, depicting the legend
Traditional Chinese	白蛇傳
Simplified Chinese	白蛇传
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Bái Shé Zhuàn Yue: Cantonese Jyutping Baak6 Se4 Cyun4 Southern Min Hokkien POJ Pe̍k-siâ-tōan or Pe̍h-siâ-tōan

The Legend of the White Snake, also known as Madame White Snake, is a Chinese legend which existed in oral tradition long before any written compilation. It has since been presented in a number of major Chinese operas, films and television series.

The earliest attempt to fictionalise the story in printed form appears to be The White Maiden Locked for Eternity in the Leifeng Pagoda (白娘子永鎭雷峰塔) in Feng Menglong's Stories to Caution the World (Chinese: 警世通言), which was written during the Ming dynasty.

The story is now counted as one of China's Four Great Folktales, the others being Lady Meng Jiang, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, and The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid (Niulang Zhinü).

Lü Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals, disguises himself as a man selling tangyuan at the Broken Bridge (斷橋) near the West Lake in Hangzhou. A boy called Xu Xian (simplified Chinese: 许仙; traditional Chinese: 許仙; pinyin: Xǔ Xiān; Jyutping: Heoi2 Sin1) buys some tangyuan from Lü Dongbin without knowing that they are actually immortality pills. He does not feel hungry for the next three days after eating them, so he goes back to ask why. Lü Dongbin laughs and carries Xu Xian to the bridge, where he flips him upside down and causes him to vomit the tangyuan into the lake.