A tiger-shocking sneeze

唐傅黃中為越州諸暨縣令，有部人飲大醉，夜中山行，臨崖而睡。忽有虎臨其上而嗅之。虎鬚入醉人鼻中，遂噴嚏，聲振虎，遂驚躍，便即落崖。腰胯不遂，為人所得。

During the Tang dynasty, when Fu Huangzhong served as the magistrate of Zhuji in Yuezhou, one of his men got very drunk. [The man] went into the mountains at night and slept on the edge of a cliff. Suddenly, a tiger leant down to sniff at him. Its whiskers stuck into the drunk man’s nose. [The man] sneezed, making such a deafening noise that the tiger leapt with a start and fell over the cliff. With a paralysed waist and hips, it ended up being caught.

* From Zhang Zhuo 張鷟 (658-730), Chaoye qianzai 朝野僉載 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 2.45.

Detail of "Feng lin qun hu" 風林群虎, handscroll by Zhao Ruyin 趙汝殷 (fl. 1436-1449)

Image credit: National Palace Museum, Taipei

明趙汝殷風林群虎圖　卷。國立故宮博物院，台北，CC BY 4.0 @ www.npm.gov.tw