Iron-crutch Li
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The most ancient of the Eight Immortals, Iron-crutch Li or Li Tieguai (Template:Zh-stpw), is named Li Kongmu, Li Hollow Eyes (Template:Zh-cp) or Li Ningyang (Template:Zh-stp). His calabash relieves suffering.
He lived in Western Zhou Dynasty. Prior to becoming an immortal, his spirit once travelled to the heaven; however, his uninformed apprentice mistook his inanimate body as a sign that he has died, so the apprentice cremated Li. In another version, the apprentice was told that the spirit will return in seven days, but on the sixth day, the apprentice's mother was in grave illness, so he had to return home, so he cremated the body. Upon returning, Li had no choice but to enter the corpse of a homeless man who died of starvation.
Unfortunately the man's head was "long and pointed, his face black, his beard and hair woolly and dishevelled, his eyes of gigantic size, and one of his legs was lame." Lao Tzu gave him a gold band to keep his hair in order, and an iron crutch to help his lame leg.
Depiction
He always carries a crutch. His recognized emblem is the bottle-gourd or calabash that forms part of the equipment of every Immortal; and to the gourd is generally added a more distinctive object, his crutch. A mysterious vapour floats upwards from the mouth of the gourd, and in its midst is seen the image of the sage's hun, which may appear in a formless shape, or in the guise of a miniature double of his bodily self. Sometimes the hun is replaced by a spherical object representing the "Philosopher's Stone".