The Story of the Zodiac Animals

At a Glance

• Central figures: The Jade Emperor, ruler of Heaven and Earth, who devised the race; twelve animals including the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig; and the Cat, who was left behind.
• Setting: A mythic time before the calendar existed, in the realm of the Jade Emperor; the race is run across a great river to his palace on the far shore.
• The turn: The Jade Emperor announces a race - the first twelve animals to reach his palace will each have a year of the cycle named in their honor.
• The outcome: Twelve animals claimed places in the zodiac in the order they finished; the Cat, betrayed by the Rat who failed to wake him, did not finish and was excluded entirely.
• The legacy: The twelve-year zodiac cycle, with each year bearing the name of one of the twelve animals in the order they crossed the finish line; the enmity between cats and rats traces to this day.

The Jade Emperor wanted a way to measure time. His solution was a race. He sent word to every creature: come to the great river at dawn; the first twelve to reach the far bank and cross the finish line at his palace would each have a year of the calendar named after them. It was an elegant arrangement. The animals came from everywhere.

At the river’s edge, they gathered - some powerful, some quick, some neither - and looked across the current. What happened next is why the years run in the order they do.

The Rat and the Ox

The Rat was small and knew it. The river was wide and cold, and a small body loses ground to current. He looked at the Ox standing beside him - broad-shouldered, calm, wholly unconcerned about rivals - and proposed a simple arrangement: the Rat would ride, the Ox would swim, and they would cross together.

The Ox agreed without hesitation. He was not the sort of animal who worried about such things.

They crossed steadily. The Ox’s hooves found purchase on the riverbed, and he pushed through the current where others struggled. When they were almost to the far bank, the Rat jumped from the Ox’s back and sprinted the last few strides to the finish line. First place. The Jade Emperor laughed and awarded it to him.

The Ox came in second. He had done the harder work, and he knew it, and it did not trouble him. Second place was second place, and he accepted it with the same equanimity he had brought to the swim.

The Tiger and the Rabbit

The Tiger was a strong swimmer - few animals in the race could match him in water - but the river had its own intentions. The current dragged at him, pushed him downstream, forced him to fight for every length. He crossed, eventually, on pure stubbornness. Third place.

The Rabbit had no business finishing fourth. He was not built for rivers. But he spotted a line of stones breaking the surface and leapt from one to the next, quick and precise, until the stones ran out and the current caught him and swept him away. He would have been lost entirely, but a log was floating downstream, and he grabbed it. As it happened, the Dragon was responsible for what came next.

The Dragon’s Detour

The Dragon could fly. He could have circled the river entirely, landed at the palace gates before anyone else arrived, and taken first place without effort. The Jade Emperor noted this when the Dragon appeared at fifth place and asked him to explain.

The Dragon had been needed elsewhere. A drought had been burning the farmland east of the river, and he had stopped to call down rain for the people there. He had also noticed the Rabbit clinging to a log in the current and blown a gust of wind to push it toward shore. By the time he resumed the race, four animals had already crossed.

The Jade Emperor gave him fifth place and seemed more pleased with this outcome than he would have been with first.

The Snake Beneath the Horse’s Hooves

The Horse was galloping for the line when the Snake appeared from nowhere - coiled tight against the ground, invisible until the last moment. The Horse shied and stumbled, and in that half-second of confusion, the Snake crossed the finish. Sixth place.

The Horse recovered and came in seventh. He was not pleased about it, but the finish line does not negotiate.

The Raft Across the Current

The Rooster found a raft caught on a sandbar - flat, solid, large enough for three. He called to the Goat and the Monkey, and the three of them worked it free and paddled across together. The Goat steadied the raft against the current’s pull. The Monkey leaned out to push off from rocks. The Rooster kept them aimed at the far bank.

They crossed in reasonable time, all three still aboard. The Jade Emperor awarded the Goat eighth place, the Monkey ninth, the Rooster tenth. He said that their willingness to work together had brought all three of them to shore faster than any of them would have managed alone.

The Dog’s Delay and the Pig’s Feast

The Dog was an excellent swimmer - better, by most measures, than half the animals who had already finished. He entered the water and immediately stopped racing. The river was cool, and he had not swum in some time, and there was no reason to rush when the water felt this good. He splashed. He dove. He surfaced and shook water from his ears and dove again. Eventually he remembered the race and swam the rest of the way properly. Eleventh place.

The Pig arrived last. Somewhere along the route he had noticed food - the story does not specify what kind, only that it stopped him - and he ate, and then he napped, the way one does after a satisfying meal. When he woke he resumed the journey and arrived at the palace to find eleven animals already registered. The Jade Emperor gave him twelfth place without complaint. The cycle was complete.

The Cat Who Was Not There

One animal is conspicuously absent from the twelve. The Cat and the Rat had been friends before the race, close enough that the Cat had asked the Rat to wake him before dawn so they could go to the river together. The Rat agreed.

He did not wake the Cat.

Whether this was deliberate calculation or the Rat simply deciding, in the dark of early morning, that fewer competitors improved his odds - the outcome was the same. The Cat slept through the race entirely. When he woke, the twelve places were filled, the zodiac was sealed, and his name was nowhere in it.

The Cat has not forgiven the Rat since. Every house that has ever had both a cat and a rat in it knows how that friendship ended.