Sòng Dēngchūn 宋登春 (c. 1515 – c. 1586), zì Yìngyuán 應元, late-life hào Échíshēng 鵝池生 (‘Master of Goose Pool’); native of Xīnhé 新河 (in modern Héběi). A Jiājìng–Wàn-lì-era unaffiliated literatus (bùyī 布衣) — never an official, never an examination-graduate — who supported himself by his poetry, painting and calligraphy. The tiyao of the Sòng bùyī jí (KR4e0238) says he abandoned home and family in his thirties (modern biographical compilations specify that his wife and five household members had died, prompting the departure) and travelled the empire, his footprints covering ‘almost all under heaven’. In his later years he attached himself to his nephew at Tiānéchí 天鵞池 in Jiānglíng 江陵 (Jīngzhōu, Húběi), whence the studio-style Échíshēng. Xú Xuémó 徐學謨 (1521–1593), as prefect of Jīngzhōu, treated him with great respect and after his own retirement from the Ministry of Rites continued the friendship; Xíng Tóng 邢侗 (1551–1612) also knew him personally and on his death composed the Diào Sòngsǒu shī 弔宋叟詩, the preface to which preserves his self-styled view of life: ‘Do you take Sòng Dēngchūn for one of those whose four walls are timbered with pine and cypress?’ On a visit to Xú Xuémó in Wúzhōng he bought a boat at the Qiántáng, sailed out into the river, and threw himself in the water. His poetry was first printed (as Échí jí 鵝池集) and his prose (as Yānshí jí 燕石集) by Xú Xuémó at Jīngzhōu; they were re-combined into the present three-juǎn Sòng bùyī jí 宋布衣集 (KR4e0238) by Wáng Péiyì 王培益 in Kāngxī yǐchǒu / 1685. Zhū Yízūn in the Jìngzhìjū shīhuà compared his style to Jiǎ Dǎo 賈島 and Lǐ Dòng 李洞. CBDB row 34756 (no dates given there; lifedates here follow modern Baidu-baike summary based on his floruit and the date of Xú Xuémó’s retirement).