Far to the south-east, in a roll of marvelous nations copied from an old classic of hills and rivers, lives a people who are half bird. The Shan hai ching, or Hill and River Classic — the record of curious folk "supposed to inhabit the regions" mapped upon "the nine tripod vases of the Great Yü," first emperor of the Hsia dynasty — is our one Chinese witness, carried in Myths & Legends of China (published 1922). Among its pygmies and fifty-foot giants and headless men, it sets the Feathered People: "The Feathered People are very tall," it says, "and are covered with fluffy down".

The description is patient and precise. "They have wings in place of arms, and can fly short distances", and where hands ought to be, "the points of the wings are claws, which serve as hands." Their faces run out into beaks — "noses are like beaks" — and their temper suits their bird bodies: "Gentle and timid, they do not leave their own country", a homekeeping folk who "have good voices, and like to sing ballads." To reach them, the witness says, one need only "go far to the south-east and then inquire", as though they were a village a traveller might walk to rather than a wonder.

Only this Chinese witness is wired to served text; the record's Irish, Tuamotu, and Greenland authorities for feathered people wait unread on the shelf, so the motif sings here in a single voice. What is quietly strange is how unmonstrous these bird-folk are — no terror, no omen, only shyness and song. When a marvel is set down as gently as this, is it still a marvel, or has the shelf begun to describe a neighbour?