What are the legends about ancient rock paintings?
The most detailed story about rock painting is the cliff stone carving in Xianzitan, Hua 'an, Fujian. As early as the Tang Dynasty, a story was recorded in Xuan Shi written by Zhang Shu in the 9th century: there is a precipice in the south of Quanzhou, and there is a pool under the cliff. This pool is too deep to measure. Dragons in the pool are often harmed by people. If a person strays into his place, or an ox or horse drinks in the pool, it will be swallowed by the dragon immediately. Therefore, people living near the cliff, with their wives and children, ran to far away places to take refuge. Legend has it that one night in the fifth year of Yuanhe in Tang Xianzong (AD 8 10), Shannan only heard a thunder, which roared for hundreds of miles. Like a landslide, people, cattle and horses were knocked to the ground. The roof tiles collided with each other and the trees were uprooted. Three hours later, the lightning subsided in the middle of the night. When I got up the next morning, I saw the cliff crumbling, the falling rocks filled the pool, the water overflowed, and the dragon blood was everywhere. At this time, the stone wall is engraved with the words 19. People who had gone out to flee also came back, building houses. Local officials named this place "Li Shiming" because the words on the stone carvings recorded the strange story. Later, someone brought the rubbings of cliff stone carvings to Luoyang. Han Yu, a famous writer in the Tang Dynasty, was a local official in Henan, whose name was Shang. It is said that he recognized those words and said that God condemned the dragon and ordered it to be killed. These "immortal words" carved on the pool of immortal words, now it seems, are actually the graphics of rock paintings.