Day spirit
Zhū Què
Vermilion Bird
An almanac describes traditional day-types. It cannot decide health, money, law, marriage or children. Burial, marriage and medical items on these pages are what a book states, never advice.
In the classical sources
巳為鶉尾朱鳥形成故以巳為朱雀也
巳 is the Quail's Tail; the shape of the red bird is complete there, so 巳 is the Vermilion Bird.
協紀辨方書 卷七
About this entry
朱雀 comes fourth and begins on 卯 in the first month. It sits among the six black-path spirits, which is to say one of six places on a ring of twelve. 協紀辨方書 卷七 records 飛流, flowing flight, as an alternate name from 曹震圭.
曹 connected the bird to the fire trigram 離 and wrote that the 坎 and 離 lines belong to petty men, a claim the 1741 editors call absurd. They explain the name through the branch 巳, known as the Quail's Tail, where the red bird of the south takes its full shape. 星厯考原 卷五 lists it without comment and gives only the counting rule.
Where this text comes from
The Chinese follows the Wikisource typed text of the Siku copy, under its CC BY-SA terms. Statements about the calculator describe its own rules, and modern practice is labeled as modern.
The English here is our own plain wording. Lists keep the items of the source.