Reflections
: Japanese Fairy TalesLong enough ago there dwelt within a day's journey of the city of Kioto
a gentleman of simple mind and manners, but good estate. His wife, rest
her soul, had been dead these many years, and the good man lived in
great peace and quiet with his only son. They kept clear of women-kind,
and knew nothing at all either of their winning or their bothering ways.
They had good steady men-servants in their house, and never set eyes on
The truth is that they were as happy as the day is long. Sometimes they
laboured in the rice-fields. Other days they went a-fishing. In the
spring, forth they went to admire the cherry flower or the plum, and
later they set out to view the iris or the peony or the lotus, as the
case might be. At these times they would drink a little sake, and
twist their blue and white tenegui about their heads and be as jolly
as you please, for there was no one to say them nay. Often enough they
came home by lantern light. They wore their oldest clothes, and were
mighty irregular at their meals.
But the pleasures of life are fleeting--more's the pity!--and presently
the father felt old age creeping upon him.
One night, as he sat smoking and warming his hands over the charcoal,
"Boy," says he, "it's high time you got married."
"Now the gods forbid!" cries the young man. "Father, what makes you say
such terrible things? Or are you joking? You must be joking," he says.
"I'm not joking at all," says the father; "I never spoke a truer word,
and that you'll know soon enough."
"But, father, I am mortally afraid of women."
"And am I not the same?" says the father. "I'm sorry for you, my boy."
"Then what for must I marry?" says the son.
"In the way of nature I shall die before long, and you'll need a wife to
take care of you."
Now the tears stood in the young man's eyes when he heard this, for he
was tender-hearted; but all he said was, "I can take care of myself very
well."
"That's the very thing you cannot," says his father.
The long and short of it was that they found the young man a wife. She
was young, and as pretty as a picture. Her name was Tassel, just that,
or Fusa, as they say in her language.
After they had drunk down the "Three Times Three" together and so
became man and wife, they stood alone, the young man looking hard at the
girl. For the life of him he did not know what to say to her. He took a
bit of her sleeve and stroked it with his hand. Still he said nothing
and looked mighty foolish. The girl turned red, turned pale, turned red
again, and burst into tears.
"Honourable Tassel, don't do that, for the dear gods' sake," says the
young man.
"I suppose you don't like me," sobs the girl. "I suppose you don't think
I'm pretty."
"My dear," he says, "you're prettier than the bean-flower in the field;
you're prettier than the little bantam hen in the farm-yard; you're
prettier than the rose carp in the pond. I hope you'll be happy with my
father and me."
At this she laughed a little and dried her eyes. "Get on another pair of
hakama," she says, "and give me those you've got on you; there's a
great hole in them--I was noticing it all the time of the wedding!"
Well, this was not a bad beginning, and taking one thing with another
they got on pretty well, though of course things were not as they had
been in that blessed time when the young man and his father did not set
eyes upon a pair of long sleeves or an obi from morning till night.
By and by, in the way of nature, the old man died. It is said he made a
very good end, and left that in his strong-box which made his son the
richest man in the country-side. But this was no comfort at all to the
poor young man, who mourned his father with all his heart. Day and night
he paid reverence to the tomb. Little sleep or rest he got, and little
heed he gave to his wife, Mistress Tassel, and her whimsies, or even to
the delicate dishes she set before him. He grew thin and pale, and she,
poor maid, was at her wits' end to know what to do with him. At last she
said, "My dear, and how would it be if you were to go to Kioto for a
little?"
"And what for should I do that?" he says.
It was on the tip of her tongue to answer, "To enjoy yourself," but she
saw it would never do to say that.
"Oh," she says, "as a kind of a duty. They say every man that loves his
country should see Kioto; and besides, you might give an eye to the
fashions, so as to tell me what like they are when you get home. My
things," she says, "are sadly behind the times! I'd like well enough to
know what people are wearing!"
"I've no heart to go to Kioto," says the young man, "and if I had, it's
the planting-out time of the rice, and the thing's not to be done, so
there's an end of it."
All the same, after two days he bids his wife get out his best hakama
and haouri, and to make up his bento for a journey. "I'm thinking of
going to Kioto," he tells her.
"Well, I am surprised," says Mistress Tassel. "And what put such an idea
into your head, if I may ask?"
"I've been thinking it's a kind of duty," says the young man.
"Oh, indeed," says Mistress Tassel to this, and nothing more, for she
had some grains of sense. And the next morning as ever was she packs her
husband off bright and early for Kioto, and betakes herself to some
little matter of house cleaning she has on hand.
The young man stepped out along the road, feeling a little better in his
spirits, and before long he reached Kioto. It is likely he saw many
things to wonder at. Amongst temples and palaces he went. He saw castles
and gardens, and marched up and down fine streets of shops, gazing about
him with his eyes wide open, and his mouth too, very like, for he was a
simple soul.
At length, one fine day he came upon a shop full of metal mirrors that
glittered in the sunshine.
"Oh, the pretty silver moons!" says the simple soul to himself. And he
dared to come near and take up a mirror in his hand.
The next minute he turned as white as rice and sat him down on the seat
in the shop door, still holding the mirror in his hand and looking into
it.
"Why, father," he said, "how did you come here? You are not dead, then?
Now the dear gods be praised for that! Yet I could have sworn---- But no
matter, since you are here alive and well. You are something pale still,
but how young you look. You move your lips, father, and seem to speak,
but I do not hear you. You'll come home with me, dear, and live with us
just as you used to do? You smile, you smile, that is well."
"Fine mirrors, my young gentleman," said the shopman, "the best that can
be made, and that's one of the best of the lot you have there. I see you
are a judge."
The young man clutched his mirror tight and sat staring stupidly enough
no doubt. He trembled. "How much?" he whispered. "Is it for sale?" He
was in a taking lest his father should be snatched from him.
"For sale it is, indeed, most noble sir," said the shopman, "and the
price is a trifle, only two bu. It's almost giving it away I am, as
you'll understand."
"Two bu--only two bu! Now the gods be praised for this their mercy!"
cried the happy young man. He smiled from ear to ear, and he had the
purse out of his girdle, and the money out of his purse, in a twinkling.
Now it was the shopman who wished he had asked three bu or even five.
All the same he put a good face upon it, and packed the mirror in a fine
white box and tied it up with green cords.
"Father," said the young man, when he had got away with it, "before we
set out for home we must buy some gauds for the young woman there, my
wife, you know."
Now, for the life of him, he could not have told why, but when he came
to his home the young man never said a word to Mistress Tassel about
buying his old father for two bu in the Kioto shop. That was where he
made his mistake, as things turned out.
She was as pleased as you like with her coral hair-pins, and her fine
new obi from Kioto. "And I'm glad to see him so well and so happy,"
she said to herself; "but I must say he's been mighty quick to get over
his sorrow after all. But men are just like children." As for her
husband, unbeknown to her he took a bit of green silk from her
treasure-box and spread it in the cupboard of the toko no ma. There he
placed the mirror in its box of white wood.
Every morning early and every evening late, he went to the cupboard of
the toko no ma and spoke with his father. Many a jolly talk they had
and many a hearty laugh together, and the son was the happiest young man
of all that country-side, for he was a simple soul.
But Mistress Tassel had a quick eye and a sharp ear, and it was not long
before she marked her husband's new ways.
"What for does he go so often to the toko no ma," she asked herself,
"and what has he got there? I should be glad enough to know." Not being
one to suffer much in silence, she very soon asked her husband these
same things.
He told her the truth, the good young man. "And now I have my dear old
father home again, I'm as happy as the day is long," he says.
"H'm," she says.
"And wasn't two bu cheap," he says, "and wasn't it a strange thing
altogether?"
"Cheap, indeed," says she, "and passing strange; and why, if I may ask,"
she says, "did you say nought of all this at the first?"
The young man grew red.
"Indeed, then, I cannot tell you, my dear," he says. "I'm sorry, but I
don't know," and with that he went out to his work.
Up jumped Mistress Tassel the minute his back was turned, and to the
toko no ma she flew on the wings of the wind and flung open the doors
with a clang.
"My green silk for sleeve-linings!" she cried at once; "but I don't see
any old father here, only a white wooden box. What can he keep in it?"
She opened the box quickly enough.
"What an odd flat shining thing!" she said, and, taking up the mirror,
looked into it.
For a moment she said nothing at all, but the great tears of anger and
jealousy stood in her pretty eyes, and her face flushed from forehead to
chin.
"A woman!" she cried, "a woman! So that is his secret! He keeps a woman
in this cupboard. A woman, very young and very pretty--no, not pretty at
all, but she thinks herself so. A dancing-girl from Kioto, I'll be
bound; ill-tempered too--her face is scarlet; and oh, how she frowns,
nasty little spitfire. Ah, who could have thought it of him? Ah, it's a
miserable girl I am--and I've cooked his daikon and mended his
hakama a hundred times. Oh! oh! oh!"
With that, she threw the mirror into its case, and slammed-to the
cupboard door upon it. Herself she flung upon the mats, and cried and
sobbed as if her heart would break.
In comes her husband.
"I've broken the thong of my sandal," says he, "and I've come to---- But
what in the world?" and in an instant he was down on his knees beside
Mistress Tassel doing what he could to comfort her, and to get her face
up from the floor where she kept it.
"Why, what is it, my own darling?" says he.
"Your own darling!" she answers very fierce through her sobs; and "I
want to go home," she cries.
"But, my sweet, you are at home, and with your own husband."
"Pretty husband!" she says, "and pretty goings-on, with a woman in the
cupboard! A hateful, ugly woman that thinks herself beautiful; and she
has my green sleeve-linings there with her to boot."
"Now, what's all this about women and sleeve-linings? Sure you wouldn't
grudge poor old father that little green rag for his bed? Come, my dear,
I'll buy you twenty sleeve-linings."
At that she jumped to her feet and fairly danced with rage.
"Old father! old father! old father!" she screamed; "am I a fool or a
child? I saw the woman with my own eyes."
The poor young man didn't know whether he was on his head or his heels.
"Is it possible that my father is gone?" he said, and he took the mirror
from the toko no ma.
"That's well; still the same old father that I bought for two bu. You
seem worried, father; nay, then, smile as I do. There, that's well."
Mistress Tassel came like a little fury and snatched the mirror from his
hand. She gave but one look into it and hurled it to the other end of
the room. It made such a clang against the woodwork, that servants and
neighbours came rushing in to see what was the matter.
"It is my father," said the young man. "I bought him in Kioto for two
bu."
"He keeps a woman in the cupboard who has stolen my green
sleeve-linings," sobbed the wife.
After this there was a great to-do. Some of the neighbours took the
man's part and some the woman's, with such a clatter and chatter and
noise as never was; but settle the thing they could not, and none of
them would look into the mirror, because they said it was bewitched.
They might have gone on the way they were till doomsday, but that one of
them said, "Let us ask the Lady Abbess, for she is a wise woman." And
off they all went to do what they might have done sooner.
The Lady Abbess was a pious woman, the head of a convent of holy nuns.
She was the great one at prayers and meditations and at mortifyings of
the flesh, and she was the clever one, none the less, at human affairs.
They took her the mirror, and she held it in her hands and looked into
it for a long time. At last she spoke:
"This poor woman," she said, touching the mirror, "for it's as plain as
daylight that it is a woman--this poor woman was so troubled in her mind
at the disturbance that she caused in a quiet house, that she has taken
vows, shaved her head, and become a holy nun. Thus she is in her right
place here. I will keep her, and instruct her in prayers and
meditations. Go you home, my children; forgive and forget, be friends."
Then all the people said, "The Lady Abbess is the wise woman."
And she kept the mirror in her treasure.
Mistress Tassel and her husband went home hand in hand.
"So I was right, you see, after all," she said.
"Yes, yes, my dear," said the simple young man, "of course. But I was
wondering how my old father would get on at the holy convent. He was
never much of a one for religion."
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"Oh! dear, oh! dear," sighed Rosy, "I'm the most unhappy little girl in all the world." She was kneeling in a chair, gazing through the drawing-room window. In the street outside was drawn up a carriage, into which Nurse was packing all of Rosy... Roumania
Roumania is the name officially adopted by the united kingdom that comprises the former principalities of Walachia and Moldavia. In its native form it appears simply as "Roumania," representing the claim to Roman descent put forward by its inhabit... Rubezahl
Over all the vast under-world the mountain Gnome Rubezahl was lord; and busy enough the care of his dominions kept him. There were the endless treasure chambers to be gone through, and the hosts of gnomes to be kept to their tasks. Some built st... Rumpelstiltskin
By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller's house was close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. She was, moreover, very shrewd and... Rumpelstiltskin
ADAPTED FROM THE GRIMM BROTHERS Once upon a time, in a kingdom far away from here, there lived a miller who was very proud, and a King who was exceedingly fond of money. The miller had a lovely daughter, and he could not say enough about her ... Rumpelstiltzkin
There was once upon a time a poor miller who had a very beautiful daughter. Now it happened one day that he had an audience with the King, and in order to appear a person of some importance he told him that he had a daughter who could spin straw ... Rumpelstilzchen
There was once a miller who was very poor, but he had a beautiful daughter. Now, it happened that he came to speak to the king, and, to give himself importance, he said to him, I have a daughter who can spin straw into gold. The king said to th... Running The Council
<p>Every good Woodcrafter should know the way of the Council Ring.</p> <p>Select some quiet level place out of doors; in the woods if possible, for it is so much better if surrounded by trees.</p> <p>Make a circle of low seats; the circle should be n... Said This Little Fairy
Said this little fairy, "I'm as thirsty as can be." Said this little fairy, "I'm hungry, too, dear me!" Said this little fairy, "Who'll tell us where to go?" Said this little fairy, "I'm sure that I don't know." Said this l... Sailing
Afloat, afloat, in a golden boat! Hoist the sail to the breeze! Steer by a star to lands afar That sleep in the southern seas, And then come home to our teas! ... Saint Christopher
A GOLDEN LEGEND ENGLISHED BY WILLIAM CAXTON (ADAPTED) Christopher was a Canaanite, and he was of a right great stature, twelve cubits in height, and had a terrible countenance. And it is said that as he served and dwelled with the King of Canaa...