Folk Tales from Japan Read online

  Folk Tales

  From Japan

  Folk Tales

  From Japan

  FABLES, MYTHS AND

  FAIRY TALES FOR CHILDREN

  Florence Sakade

  Illustrated by Yoshio Hayashi

  Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

  www.tuttlepublishing.com

  Copyright © 2020 Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

  Previously published as More Japanese Children’s Favorite Stories

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Process

  Distributed by:

  Japan

  Tuttle Publishing

  Yaekari Building, 3F

  5-4-12 Osaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 141-0032

  Tel: (03) 5437 0171; Fax: (03) 5437 0755

  [email protected];

  www.tuttle.co.jp

  North America, Latin America & Europe

  Tuttle Publishing

  364 Innovation Drive

  North Clarendon, VT 05759-9436

  Tel: (802) 773 8930; Fax: (802) 773 6993

  [email protected]

  www.tuttlepublishing.com

  Asia Pacific

  Berkeley Books Pte Ltd

  3 Kallang Sector #04-01

  Singapore 349278

  Tel: (65) 6741 2178 Fax: (65) 6741 2179

  [email protected]

  www.tuttlepublishing.com

  ISBN 978-1-4629-2190-4

  24 23 22 21 20 6 5 4 3 2 1

  2001EP

  Printed in Hong Kong

  TUTTLE PUBLISHING® is a registered trademark of Tuttle Publishing, a division of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.

  Contents

  The Magic Mortar

  How to Fool a Cat

  The Dragon’s Tears

  The Rolling Mochi Cakes

  The Robe of Feathers

  The Princess and the Herdboy

  Urashima Taro

  The Flying Farmer

  The Fairy Crane

  The Old Man With a Wen

  Why the Red Elf Cried

  The Biggest in the World

  The Sandal Seller

  The Singing Turtle

  Saburo the Eel Catcher

  Kintaro’s Adventures

  The Magic Mortar

  Once upon a time two brothers lived together in a little village in Japan. The eldest brother worked very hard all the time, but the younger brother was very lazy and good-for-nothing. One day the elder brother went off to the mountains to work. While he was working, an old man came up to him and gave him a mortar made of stone, the kind used for grinding rice or wheat into flour.

  “This is a magic mortar which will give you anything you wish for,” said the old man. “Please take it home with you.”

  The elder brother was very happy and rushed home with the mortar.

  “Please give me rice. We need rice.” So saying, he ground the stick in the mortar. And all at once out came rice, bales of rice. There was so much that he gave rice to everyone in the village.

  “This is wonderful! This is a great help. Thank you very much.” The villagers were all very happy.

  That is, everyone was happy except the lazy younger brother. “I wish I had that; I’d make better use of it,” he grumbled to himself. And one day he stole the magic mortar and ran away.

  “No one will be able to catch me if I can get to the ocean,” he thought as he ran to the seashore.

  When he reached the shore, he found a small rowboat. He took it and rowed very hard out to sea. He soon was far out and right in the middle of the big waves.

  Then he stopped rowing and began to think what he wanted to ask the mortar for. “I have it! I would like a lot of nice, sweet little cakes.” And he began to grind at the mortar with the stick. “Give me cake! Give me cake!” And lots of fine white cakes came rolling out of the mortar.

  “My! How good they are! And what a lot of cakes I got!” And he ate every one. He had eaten so many and they were so sweet that he began to feel like he wanted to eat something salty to take the too-sweet taste out of his mouth.

  So he ground at the mortar again and said: “Give me salt this time. I want salt. I want salt.” And now salt came pouring out of the mortar, all white and shining. And it kept coming and coming.

  “Enough,” he cried, “I’ve had enough. Stop!” But the salt kept coming and coming, and the boat began to fill up and get heavy. And still the salt kept coming, and now the boat was so full it started to sink. And as the brother sank with the boat, he was still crying: “Enough! Enough!”

  But the mortar kept on giving out salt and more salt, even down at the bottom of the ocean, and it is still doing it. And that is why the sea is salty.

  How to Fool a Cat

  Once upon a time there was a rich lord who liked to collect carvings of animals. He had many kinds, but he had no carved mouse. So he called two skilled carvers to him and said:

  “I want each of you to carve a mouse for me. I want them to be so lifelike that my cat will think they’re real mice and pounce on them. We’ll put them down together and see which mouse the cat pounces on first. To the carver of that mouse I’ll give this bag of gold.”

  So the two carvers went back to their homes and set to work. After a time they came back. One had carved a wonderful mouse out of wood. It was so well done that it looked exactly like a mouse. The other, however, had done very badly. He had used some material that flaked and looked funny; it didn’t look like a mouse at all.

  “What’s this?” asked the lord. “This wooden mouse is a marvelous piece of carving, but this other mouse—if it is indeed supposed to be a mouse—wouldn’t fool anyone, let alone a cat.”

  “Let the cat be brought in,” said the second carver. “The cat can decide which is the better mouse.”

  The lord thought this was rather silly, but he ordered the cat to be brought in. No sooner had it come into the room than it pounced upon the badly carved mouse and paid no attention at all to the one that was carved so well.

  There was nothing for the lord to do but give the gold to the unskilful carver, but as he did so he said: “Well, now that you have the gold, tell me how you did it.”

  “It was easy, my lord,” said the man. “I didn’t carve my mouse from wood. I carved it from dried fish. That’s why the cat pounced upon it so swiftly.”

  When the lord heard how the cat and everyone else had been fooled, he could not help laughing, and soon everyone in the entire court was holding his sides with laughter.

  “Well,” said the lord finally, “then I’ll have to give you two bags of gold. One to the workman who carved so well, and one to you who carved so cleverly. I’ll keep the wooden mouse, and we’ll let the cat have the other one.”

  The Dragon’s Tears

  Far away in a strange country there lived a dragon. And the dragon’s home was in a deep mountain cave, from which his eyes shone like headlights. Very often, when some of the people living nearby were gathered in the evening by the fire, one would say: “What a dreadful dragon is living near us!” And another would agree, saying: “Someone should kill him!”

  Whenever children were told about the dragon, they were frightened. But there was one little boy who was never frightened. All the neighbors said: “Isn’t he a funny little boy!” When it was almost time for this funny little boy’s birthday, his mother asked him: “Whom would you like to invite for your birthday party?” Then that l
ittle boy said: “Mother, I would like to ask the dragon!” His mother was very much surprised and asked: “Are you joking?” “No,” said the little boy very seriously, “I mean what I say: I want to invite the dragon.”

  And, sure enough, on the day before his birthday the little boy stole quietly out of his house. He walked and he walked and he walked till he reached the mountain where the dragon lived.

  “Hello! Hello! Mr. Dragon!” the little boy called down the valley in his loudest voice.

  “What’s the matter? Who’s calling me?” rumbled the dragon, coming out of his cave. Then the little boy said: “Tomorrow is my birthday and there will be lots of good things to eat, so please come to my party. I came all the way to invite you.”

  At first the dragon couldn’t believe his ears and kept roaring at the boy. But the boy wasn’t frightened at all and kept saying: “Please, Mr. Dragon, please come to my party.”

  Finally the dragon understood that the boy meant what he said and was actually asking him, a dragon, to his birthday party. Then the dragon stopped roaring and began to weep. “What a happy thing to happen to me!” the dragon sobbed. “I never had a kind invitation from anyone before.”

  The dragon’s tears flowed and flowed until at last they became a river. Then the dragon said: “Come, climb on my back and I’ll give you a ride home!”

  The boy climbed bravely onto the back of the ferocious dragon and away the dragon went, swimming down the river of his own tears. But as he went, by some magic his body changed its size and shape. And suddenly—what do you know!—the little boy was sailing bravely down the river toward home as captain of a dragon-steamboat!

  —by Hirosuke Hamada

  The Rolling Mochi Cakes

  Once upon a time there was an old man and his old wife. One day the old man said: “I’m going to cut some firewood today. Please make me some mochi cakes for my lunch.” So the old woman made mochi cakes and put them in the old man’s lunch box. Then the old man left the house.

  He went far into the forest and cut firewood all morning. When it was noon, he sat down to eat and opened his lunch box, saying: “Now, for some of the old lady’s delicious mochi cakes.”

  Then he suddenly cried: “Oh, my!” because one of the mochi cakes had fallen out of the box, and he saw it go rolling away. Away it rolled, and suddenly down it plopped into a hole in the ground.

  The old man ran over to the hole and—what do you know!—he could hear tiny voices singing inside the hole. “What’s going on down there?” he asked himself. “I’ll drop one more rice cake down and see.”

  After he had dropped the second rice cake into the hole, he put his ear close to the ground, and now he could hear the words of the song. And this is the song the tiny voices were singing:

  Mochi cakes, mochi cakes,

  Nice, fat mochi cakes,

  Rolling, rolling, rolling—down!

  “What a beautiful song,” the old man said, and he kept rolling mochi cakes down the hole until they were all gone. Then he leaned far over to peek into the hole.

  Suddenly he called out: “Help! Help!” But it was too late—he had fallen in, and with a thump-thump-thump he too went rolling right down the hole.

  There at the bottom of the hole he found hundreds of field mice. They had eaten all his mochi cakes and now they were singing again as they pounded rice.

  “Thank you very much for the delicious mochi cakes, old man,” the leader of the mice said. “To show our thanks we’ll give you this bag of rice.” And the mouse gave the old man a small bag of rice about the size of a fat coin purse.

  “Goodbye, old rolling man,” all the mice called. And then they sang another song:

  Nice man, rice man,

  Nice, fat mice man,

  Rolling, rolling, rolling—up!

  And as they sang the old man felt himself rolling right up and out of the hole.

  Once he was on top of the ground, the old man brushed himself off and then went home, carrying the small bag of rice with him.

  When his old wife heard his story and saw the rice, she said: “Humpf! That won’t make more than two or three mochi cakes.” But when she started pouring the rice out, they were surprised to discover that the bag always stayed full, no matter how much they poured out of it. It was a magic rice bag, a wonderful present that the mice had given them. After that they always had all the rice they could possibly eat. The old woman made mochi cakes for herself and the old man every day—mountains of them—and they lived happily ever afterward.

  The Robe of Feathers

  Once there was a fisherman who lived all alone on a tiny island in Japan. He was very poor and very lonely. Early one morning he started toward his boat; there had been a bad storm the night before, but now the sun was shining brightly. As he walked along, he saw something hanging on a branch of one of the pine trees along the beach. It was beautiful and shining. He took it down from the branch and found that it was a wonderful robe made of feathers. The feathers were of all different colors, as lovely and soft as the rainbow, and they shined and sparkled in the sunlight like jewels. It was the most beautiful thing the fisherman had ever seen in all his life.

  “Oh, what a beautiful robe!” he said. “It’s certainly a priceless treasure. There’s no one else on my island so it can’t belong to anyone. I’ll take it home and keep it always. Then my poor home will be beautiful and I can look at the robe whenever I’m lonely.” Holding the robe very carefully in his rough hands, he turned and started to carry it home.

  Just then a beautiful woman came running after him. “Mr. Fisherman, Mr. Fisherman,” she called, “that’s my robe of feathers that you’re taking away. Please give it back to me.” She went on to explain that she was an angel from heaven and that the robe of feathers was actually her wings. While she was flying through the sky, the storm had come and wet her wings so that she could not fly. So she had waited on this island until the sun came out and then had hung her wings out to dry on a pine tree, where the fisherman had found them.

  “So you see,” she finished, “if you don’t give my wings back to me I’ll never be able to fly back to my home in heaven again.” Then the woman began to weep.

  The fisherman felt very sad for her. “Please don’t cry,” he said. “Of course I’ll give you your robe of feathers. If I’d known it belonged to anyone, I would never have touched it.” And he knelt down before her and handed her the robe.

  The angel began at last to smile and her face was shining with happiness. “Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Fisherman.” she said. “You’re such a good man that I’m going to dance the angel’s dance for you.”

  Then the angel put on the robe of many-colored feathers and began to dance there before the fisherman. It was certainly the most beautiful dance the fisherman had ever seen, and probably the most beautiful dance that had ever been danced anywhere on this earth, since angels usually dance their angel’s dance high up in the heavens. The air was filled with heavenly music, and the feathered robe sparkled in the sunlight until the entire island was wrapped in rainbows.

  As the angel danced, she rose slowly in the air, higher and higher, until finally she disappeared far up in the blue sky. The fisherman stood watching the sky and remembering the beautiful dance he’d seen. He knew that he’d never be lonely or poor again—not with such a beautiful memory to carry always in his heart.

  The Princess and the Herdboy

  This is a tale of long and long ago, when the King of the Sky was still busy making stars to hang in the heavens at night. The king had a very beautiful daughter. She was called Weaving Princess because she sat at her loom all day long every day. She wove the most delicate stuff in the world. It was so light and airy, so thin and smooth, that it was hung among the stars in the sky and draped toward the earth. It was the cloth that we now call clouds and fog and mist.

  The King of the Sky was very proud of his daughter because she could weave so beautifully and was such a help to him. He was very busy ma
king the sky, you see, and needed all the help he could get. But one day he noticed that Weaving Princess was becoming pale.

  “Well, well, my little princess,” the king said, “you’ve been working too hard I fear. So tomorrow you must take a holiday. Go out and play among the stars all day long. Then please hurry back and help me. I still need much more mist and fog, and many more clouds.”

  The princess was very happy to have a holiday. She’d always wanted to go and wade in the stream, called the Milky Way, that flowed through the sky. But she’d never had time before.

  She put on her prettiest clothes and ran out among the stars, right over to the Milky Way. And there, in the middle of the stream, she saw a handsome boy, washing a cow in the water.

  “Hello,” the boy said to the princess, “who are you?”

  “I’m the star Vega,” she answered. “But everyone calls me Weaving Princess.”

  “I’m the star Altair,” said the boy. “But everyone calls me Herdboy because I tend the cows that belong to the King of the Sky. I live over there on the other side of the Milky Way. Won’t you come over to my house and play with me?”

  So the herdboy put the princess on the back of the cow and led her across the stream to his house. They played all sorts of wonderful games and had so much fun that the princess forgot all about going home to help her father.

  The King of the Sky became very worried when the princess failed to come home. He sent a magpie as his messenger to find her and tell her to come home. But when the magpie spoke to the princess she was having such fun that she wouldn’t even listen. Finally the king had to go himself and bring the princess home.

  “You’ve been a very bad girl,” the king said. “Just look at the sky—not even finished yet. You’ve been away playing and the sky needs clouds and mist and fog. So you can never have another holiday. You must stay here and weave all the time.”