In the system of Taoist fairy tales,
Wangmu Niangniang (the Queen Mother of the West) is the supreme goddess
in the heaven, and the wife of Yuhuang Dadi (the Jade Emperor). In the
famous Taoist fanes, she is described as a beautiful lady of about thirty.
The molding of the Queen Mother of the West
is formed after a long time of evolvement. Her origin is quite surprising. In
ancient times, she was called Xiwangmu. Some of oldest Chinese works had
the record about her. At that time, she was a bugbear with the tiger's teeth,
panther's tail and could make terrible sounds. She lived in Kunlun Mountains, but in fact, she was a tribe's
leader or totem in West China.
At the end of the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), she was brought into the system of
fairy stories and gradually became a graceful goddess.
In many later Chinese ancient works, she
became the queen of the heaven, the goddess in charge of the happiness and the
longevity of human beings. She is said to have elixir that can make people live
forever and never grow old. It was just for eating the elixir of life that the
famous goddess in the moon flied to the moon. Taoism raises her to a very high
position, regarding her as the leader of all the goddesses, and the gods are all
governed by her and her husband.