The collecting continues, although virtually all Manchurian folktales are now found in Chinese, with a very few in Mongolian.

The beginnings of the Manchu people are described in the tale of Bukuri Yong-shon. The founder of the Manchu, he had a divine origin, being the son of one of the Heavenly Maidens.

The three Heavenly Maidens

The three Heavenly Maidens were bathing one day near the Long White Mountains, and as they finished came out of the lake to dress. One of the three found a red fruit on her clothing. She put it into her mouth while she dressed, and the fruit was inadvertently swallowed. She said to her sisters that she was heavy and could not return to heaven with them. The two sisters took pity on her, and they told her to return to the heavens as soon as she became lighter.

This happened very soon, for she immediately bore a child who had the power of speech as soon as he was born. His mother told him that he was sent to earth to bring order to the matters of men and to establish a better world for humans. The boy was told to enter a small boat prepared by his mother, and the Heavenly Maiden bade him follow the stream. Then she left to return to heaven.

The boy followed the stream until he found a convenient place to land. There he made a shelter with bent twigs and grass. He made a raised place to sit and entered the shelter, sat upon the raised platform and waited. Bukuri Yong-shon had come ashore in a land in which three nations warred with each other to determine which should rule over all three.

Not long thereafter a hunter happened upon the shelter, looked inside, and saw the boy. He rushed back to his village and told the headman that he had seen a wondrous boy in a shelter by the river. The headman went to the river and saw the boy and recognized his unique qualities.

Bukuri Yong-shon said to him, “I am a son of the heavens, and I have come to bring order to this land. My mother is one of the Heavenly Maidens, and I was sent in the form of a red fruit that my mother ate.” The headman immediately recognized that Bukuri Yong-shon was the answer to their problems, and he asked the leaders of the two other warring nations to come to his village.