Modern readers tend to assume that He Bang’e’s (fl 1736- ca 1779) Yetan suilu (Casual Records of Night Talks) are fictional-the products of an author’s creative imagination However, a close reading of the stones in this collection, with reference to other collections of such supernatural stories, demonstrates that such stones were believable for their audience, and that the anthologists wrote down the stones they heard from others In other words. the stories are in fact legends-stories heard from others, which the narrator and his audience nevertheless believe are factual. Indeed, the content of several stones demonstrates that, Judged by Chinese standards of the day, the material was generally believable. At the same time, many a legend mentions the narrator who recounted the story to He Bang’e, and a few of the legends even appear in a contemporary’s book. Moreover, Bang’e repeatedly cites by name a friend of his who tells some of the stories to him, comments upon others, and apparently even presented some of his own in writing. Similarly, at the end of many legends describing unusual phenomena, he often appends explanations or reactions to the given phenomenon, generally demonstrating his belief m it. Others he explicitly identifies as legends. In his own preface to this book, he says that he has talked about such topics while drinking at night with his friends, and what he says in several stories further corroborates that telling such stories at night was a common program of evening entertainment. In fact, the book seems to be Just what he calls it-Casual Records of Night Talks.