Xiangliu — Xiāngliú (相柳) — is the monstrous nine-headed serpent of Chinese mythology: the venomous, devastating minister of the water-god Gonggong, a great snake with nine human-faced heads whose foul presence poisoned and laid waste the land, until it was slain by Yu the Great. The nine-headed poison-serpent, Xiangliu is one of the great monsters of Chinese myth.
The Nine-Headed Serpent
Xiangliu was a monstrous serpent or snake-being with nine heads — nine heads, each (in the most vivid descriptions) bearing a human face, set upon a great serpentine, blue or green body. He was the chief minister and follower of the destructive water-god Gonggong — the monster who served the chaos-god of floods. With his nine ravenous heads, Xiangliu could feed from nine mountains (or hills) at once, devouring everything, a creature of insatiable, devastating appetite.
The Poisoner of the Land
Xiangliu’s defining horror was his foulness and venom. Wherever the monster went, wherever it vomited, spat, or its body touched, the ground was poisoned — turned to foul, bitter, marshy, poisonous wasteland where nothing could live or grow, the water made undrinkable and the soil ruined. His very presence and his excretions blighted and laid waste the land, spreading marsh, poison, and desolation, killing the crops and the people. As the servant of the flood-god Gonggong, Xiangliu embodied the destructive, poisoning, land-ruining power of the catastrophic waters and the chaos they brought.
The Slaying by Yu
Xiangliu was slain by the great flood-hero Yu the Great, in the course of Yu’s mastery of the Great Flood and his struggle against the forces of the water-chaos (the followers of Gonggong). But killing the monster was not the end of the trouble: when Yu slew Xiangliu, the monster’s blood poured out and was so foul and poisonous that it ruined the ground where it fell — the earth turned foul and stinking, so that no grain could grow there. Yu tried again and again to dam and fill the poisoned ground, but the foul blood kept welling up; at last he had to dig it out and build a great mound or terrace (a platform for the gods) over the cursed spot to contain the poison. Thus even the slain monster’s blood was a lasting blight that the hero had to labour to control. The nine-headed, human-faced poison-serpent, devourer of nine mountains, foul minister of the flood-god Gonggong, blighter of the land, slain by Yu the Great whose blood poisoned the very earth — Xiangliu is one of the great monsters of Chinese mythology, the nine-headed serpent of poison and desolation.
