The story type that contains the plot of stabbing a sword to draw water has its most famous example in the Guoxing Well in Dajia, Taiwan. Sword well is not an exclusive story of Dajia, the same type of stories can be found many places in China. However, the sword well stories in Taiwan have a special affinity with the legends of Cheng Chengkong (Lord Guoxing). Whether in Dajia or in the Fengtian village in Dapi, Yunlin, the legends of Guoxing well share very similar motif structure. In this article, I shall propose the idea of ”organic structure of motives” that all motives of the Guoxing Well legends belong to one organic structure and each motif relates to the rest of the same structure in one way or another. All motives under the same organic structure could absorb or develop into another legend given their internal relations.The important motives of the Guoxing Well stories are sword, well/ spring, and epidemic. Its plot basically consists of the following parts: a general whose troops were in desperate need of drinking water, he stabbed his sword into earth and drew spring water that later became a well, the well water then was considered to have healing power. I shall analyze the three motives in depth and include in the discussion the relating issues of military officers and the connection between snake/ dragon and epidemic. Through textual analysis, I shall trace the original nature of the motives and construct the composite organic structure of the three motives in folklore and folk literature. Finally, I shall use a much later, contemporary legend and compare it with the Qing gazetteer records to verify the validity of the organic structure.
