Li Xuan, also known as Li Tieguai and Li of the Iron Crutch or Iron Crutch Li, who was to first of the Eight Immortals to become immortal. His talisman is a bottle gourd that can concoct elixirs and magic potions to help the sick. Li Xuan is the patron of the sick, druggists and exorcists.
When Li Xuan was young he was of a poor family, and one year there was a severe drought where harvest failed in which his father committed suicide while his mother wept so much she went blind. Li Xuan resorted to begging and later to stealing for food.
When Li Xuan was caught stealing it became harder for him to get any food, which lead him to one night steal a material possession from another family, a wok. When running off with the wok Li Xuan was caught be a Taoist priest who told Li Xuan that one shouldn’t be a thief and that the wok should be returned. Li Xuan returned the wok the next day and the next night Li Xuan saw the same Taoist priest who rewarded him with the gourd that can cure illness.
Eventually Li Xuan started to practice the Tao within a cave. Lao Zi, the founder of Taoism, actually visited Li Xuan and the two became good friends.
Li Xuan was a handsome man who often sat in meditation and his spirit would actually leave his body, visiting Heaven itself.
However, one day Li Xuan told his disciple his spirit would leave his body for seven days and that it should be guarded during the time. On the sixth day the disciple got news of his mother being sick and that he needed to get home fast, so he cremated Li Xuan’s body. When Li Xuan’s spirit returned he couldn’t find his own body so he took the body of a dead beggar with a bad leg who sadly didn’t have the most handsome of appearances.
Lao Zi gave Li Xuan a gold band to hold the messy hair and a iron walking cane to help walk.
It is even suggested that the beggar one of the other Eight Immortals, Lan Caihe, brought back to health may have been Li Xuan himself.
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