Another story of the creation of magical items is the Chinese tale, Zhuang Brocade. In this tale a mother who already possesses a supernatural gift for weaving thread into lifelike forms finds a beautiful painting depicting a land in which she longed to live in. Spending many years, she weaves the painting for herself, using her own tears and blood, much to the disdain of the two elder of her three sons. When she has finally completed the painting, a breeze carries it away to the fairies of Sun Mountain, which poses a perilous and hopeless journey for its return. While her two eldest sons abandon the journey out of greed, the youngest son completes the journey and returns the woven cloth to his mother, who is now quite old and nearly dead. The miraculous ending occurs as the cloth transforms into the world around them, allowing the youngest son, his mother, and a fairy who tried to replicate her work to live in the same place that she had created from cloth. The story speaks to the perseverance of hope and dreams. Again, the magical gift is the reward of perseverance, just as in Turquoise Boy.

In Three Charms, by Cathy Spagnoli, from Japan, a young boy wants to go and collect chestnuts. A monk gives him three magical charms, three slips of paper, to protect him from the Yamanbas, fierce shape shifters. When he goes to return home, he realizes it is dark, so he seeks shelter in the cottage of an old woman. The rain awakens him in the night, seeming to say danger. He checks on the old woman, and realizes she is a yamanbas. She tells him she is going to eat him, and he stalls, by saying he must go to the bathroom. The yamanbas ties a cord to his waist to keep him from running away. When the boy is in the outhouse, he ties the cord to a post, and as the monster calls to him, he slips the first charm into the post and tells it to answer in his voice. She calls again, and his voice answered. She waits longer and becomes impatient. She goes to the outhouse and realizes the boy is gone, so she begins to chase him through the forest. The boy takes out the second paper and tells it to make a river as he throws it behind him. The river springs up, but the yamanbas can swim. He takes out his last charm and tells it to make a mountain. The mountain springs up, but the monster still chases the boy. When he gets to the temple, he asks the monk to hide him. In roars the yamanbas, screaming for the boy. The monk gives her some rice cakes and distracts her, asking her to show her powers. First he has her change into a giant, then, he asks her to become as small as a bean. When she is a bean, he eats her up!
I like this story because the boy the boy is warned against bravado, and when he lets the bravado take him, he barely escapes with his life. The boy must also think on his feet. The magical gifts he is given are not enough by themselves. Even though he is not completely successful, the story feels right because it shows that wits are just as important, if not more so in the case of the monk, than magic. This is an important lesson, to never rely on luck alone, but always use your intellect. I thought this was a pretty cool story, and would enjoy reading this to kids.