Gan Bao recorded, in a fourth-century compilation of supernatural tales, the story of a Xinyu man who stole a bathing celestial maiden’s feathered robe so she could not fly home, forcing her to become his wife.
干宝在其四世纪的志怪小说合集中,记载了一则故事;新余的一名男子,趁一位沐浴的仙女不备,偷走了她的羽衣,使她无法飞回天庭,只能被迫嫁给他为妻。
Scholars now consider this the oldest written swan-maiden legend anywhere in the world, predating comparable tales in Japan, Korea and Europe by centuries.
学者们如今认为,这是世界上有文字记载的最古老的天鹅仙女型传说,比日本、朝鲜半岛及欧洲的同类故事,早了数个世纪。
The story did not end happily. Gan Bao’s account has the fairy bear the man children over several years before finally locating her hidden robe, putting it back on, and flying away for good, taking the children with her and leaving the man entirely alone.
这个故事并未迎来一个美满的结局。据干宝所述,这位仙女为这名男子育有子女,数年之后,她终于找到了被藏起来的羽衣,重新披上,永远飞离而去,并带走了子女,只留下这名男子孤身一人。
According to a guide who accompanied a reporter from the online publication RADII in 2021, local storytelling around the lake still ends the tale exactly as Gan Bao wrote it seventeen centuries earlier, an ending that the lake’s modern promotional material largely sidesteps.
据线上媒体RADII一名记者二零二一年造访时随行导游所述,当地至今讲述这则传说时,结局依旧与十七个世纪前干宝笔下如出一辙——而这一结局,恰恰是湖区如今的宣传材料刻意避开的部分。
A Reservoir Built for Irrigation, Rebranded as a Romance
一座为灌溉而建的水库,如今被包装成一处浪漫圣地
What is now called Fairy Lake did not exist when Gan Bao wrote his account; it was created in the 1950s as an irrigation reservoir, when a dam was built across the local river system and the surrounding hills were partially flooded, their remaining peaks becoming the lake’s scattered islands.
如今被称作”仙女湖”的这片水域,在干宝写下这则故事之时其实并不存在;它是二十世纪五十年代为灌溉而建的水库,当地水系被一座大坝拦截,周边部分丘陵随之被淹没,残留的山头,便成了如今湖面上星罗棋布的岛屿。
The scenic administration has since built an entire tourist identity around romance rather than captivity, adding a Love Mountain zone, a matchmaker’s temple, and an annual lakeside fireworks display timed to Qixi, the Chinese Valentine’s Day.
此后,景区管理方围绕这一传说打造了一整套旅游品牌,主打的却是浪漫,而非囚禁;园区内设有”爱情山”景区、一座月老庙,还会在七夕节当晚举办湖畔烟花表演。
The reinvention now runs deeper than signage. Wedding photographers book the lakeside islands for shoots year-round, souvenir stalls sell replica feathered shawls as bridal keepsakes, and Love Mountain hosts vow-renewal ceremonies for couples marking anniversaries, all built around the same feathers that, in the original story, were stolen specifically to prevent an escape.
如今,这场改造已远不止于招牌宣传。婚纱摄影师全年在湖心岛屿预订取景档期,纪念品摊位将仿制羽衣披肩当作新娘伴手礼出售,”爱情山”景区还为纪念结婚周年的伴侣举办重温誓词的仪式——而这一切,都围绕着同一件羽衣展开;在原本的故事中,这件羽衣之所以被偷走,恰恰是为了阻止她逃离。
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Xinyu’s GDP reached ¥114.3 billion that year, up just 0.6 percent, with industrial output actually falling 3.1 percent even as the service sector grew; per capita output came to ¥95,418, and the permanent population stood at 1.194 million, continuing a slight decline.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年新余市GDP达一千一百四十二点五二亿元,同比仅增长百分之零点六,其中工业增加值实际下降百分之三点一,而服务业则保持增长;人均产值为九万五千四百一十八元,常住人口为一百一十九点四万人,仍在小幅下降。
Getting to Xinyu means a high-speed rail journey of around 40 minutes from Nanchang, or a shorter drive of roughly 16 kilometres from the city centre out to the lake itself.
前往新余,可乘坐高铁,从南昌出发车程约四十分钟;若要前往仙女湖本身,自市区驱车仅需约十六公里。
Statues of the seven fairies still greet visitors at the park gate today, cast in the same feathered robes that, in the story that gave the lake its name, were stolen so their owner could never wear them home again.
如今,七位仙女的雕像依旧在景区大门口迎候游人,身披的正是那件羽衣——而在这则赋予湖泊其名的传说中,这件羽衣当年正是被偷走,才令她再也无法穿着它飞回天庭。
