The Espousal Of The Rat's Daughter
: Japanese Fairy TalesMr. Nedzumi, the Rat, was an important personage in the hamlet where he
lived--at least he was so in his own and his wife's estimation. This was
in part, of course, due to the long line of ancestors from whom he was
descended, and to their intimate association with the gods of Good
Fortune. For, be it remembered, his ancestry went back into a remote
past, in fact as far as time itself; for had not one of his race been
even given him over the dragon, the tiger, and the horse? As to his
intimacy with the gods, had not one of his forebears been the chosen
companion of the great Daikoku, the most revered and the most beneficent
of the gods of Good Fortune?
Mr. Rat was well-to-do in life. His home had for generations been
established in a snug, warm and cosy bank, hard by one of the most
fertile rice-fields on the country-side, where crops never failed, and
where in spring he could nibble his fill of the young green shoots, and
in autumn gather into his storerooms supplies of the ripened grain
sufficient for all his wants during the coming winter.
For his needs were not great. Entertainment cost him but little, and,
unlike his fellows, he had the smallest of families, in fact a family of
one only.
But, as regards that one, quality more than compensated for quantity,
for it consisted of a daughter, of a beauty unsurpassed in the whole
province. He himself had been the object of envy in his married life,
for he had had the good fortune to marry into a family of a very select
piebald breed, which seldom condescended to mix its blood with the
ordinary self-coloured tribe, and now his daughter had been born a
peerless white, and had received the name of Yuki, owing to her
resemblance to pure snow.
It is little wonder, then, that as she grew up beautiful in form and
feature, her father's ambitions were fired, and that he aspired to marry
her to the highest in the land.
As it happened, the hamlet where he lived was not very far removed from
a celebrated temple, and Mr. Rat, having been brought up in the odour of
sanctity, had all his life long been accustomed to make pilgrimages to
the great shrine. There he had formed the acquaintance of an old priest,
who was good enough to provide for him out of the temple offerings in
return for gossip as to the doings of his village, which happened to be
that in which the priest had been born and bred. To him the rat had
often unburdened his mind, and the old priest had come to see his
friend's self-importance and his little weaknesses, and had in vain
impressed upon him the virtues of humility.
Now Mr. Rat could find no one amongst his village companions to inform
him where to attain what had now become an insatiable desire, namely, a
fine marriage for his daughter. So he turned to the temple custodian for
advice, and one summer morn found him hammering on the gong which
summoned his friend the priest.
"Welcome, Mr. Rat; to what am I indebted for your visit?" said the old
priest, for experience had shown him that his friend seldom came so far
afield unless he had some request to make.
Thereupon Mr. Rat unburdened himself of all that was in his mind, of his
aspiration, and of the difficulty he had in ascertaining in what manner
he could obtain it.
Nor did the priest immediately satisfy him, for he said the matter was a
difficult one, and would require much consideration. However, on the
third day the oracle gave answer as follows: "There is no doubt that
apart from the gods there is no one so powerful, or who exercises so
beneficent a rule over us, as His Majesty the Sun. Had I a daughter, and
did I aspire to such heights for her as you do, I should make my suit to
him, and I should take the opportunity of so doing when he comes down to
our earth at sundown, for then it is that he decks himself in his most
gorgeous apparel; moreover, he is more readily approached when his day's
work is done, and he is about to take his well-earned rest. Were I you
I would lose no time, but present myself in company with your honourable
wife and daughter to him this very evening at the end of the great
Cryptomeria Avenue at the hour when he especially honours it by flooding
it with his beams."
"A thousand thanks," said Mr. Rat. "No time is to be lost if I am to get
my folk together at the time and place you mention."
"Good fortune to you," said the priest; "may I hail you the next time I
see you as father-in-law to His Majesty the Sun."
At the appointed hour parents and daughter were to be seen in the
avenue, robed in their finest clothes; and as the sun came earthwards
and his rays illumined the gloom under the great pines, Mr. Rat, noway
abashed, addressed His Majesty and at once informed him of his desire.
His Majesty, evidently considering that one business personage
addressing another should not waste time in beating about the bush,
replied as follows: "I am extremely beholden to you for your kind
intention of allowing me to wed your honourable and beautiful daughter,
O Yuki San, but may I ask your reason for selecting me to be your
honourable son-in-law?"
To this Mr. Rat replied, "We have determined to marry our daughter to
whoever is the most powerful personage in the world, and that is why we
desire to offer her to you in marriage."
"Yes," said His Majesty, "you are certainly not without reason in
imagining me to be the most august and powerful person in the world;
but, unfortunately, it has been my misfortune to discover that there is
one other even more powerful than myself, against whose plottings I have
no power. It is to him that you should very certainly marry your
daughter."
"And may we honourably ask you who that potentate may be?" said Mr. Rat.
"Certainly," rejoined the Sun. "It is the Cloud. Oftentimes when I have
set myself to illumine the world he comes across my path and covers my
face so that my subjects may not see me, and so long as he does this I
am altogether in his power. If, therefore, it is the most powerful
personage in the world whom you seek for your daughter, the honourable O
Yuki San, you must bestow her on no one else than the Cloud."
It required little consideration for both father and mother to see the
wisdom of the Sun's advice, and upon his suggestion they determined to
wait on the Cloud at the very earliest opportunity, and at an hour
before he rose from his bed, which he usually made on the slopes of a
mountain some leagues removed from their village. So they set out, and a
long journey they had, so long that Mr. Rat decided that if he was to
present his daughter when she was looking her best, the journey must not
be hurried. Consequently, instead of arriving at early dawn, it was full
afternoon when they neared the summit where the Cloud was apparently
wrapped in slumber. But he roused himself as he saw the family
approaching, and bade them welcome in so urbane a manner that the Rat
at once proceeded to lay his request before him.
To this the Cloud answered, "I am indeed honoured by your condescension
in proposing that I should marry your beauteous daughter, O Yuki San. It
is quite true, as His August Majesty the Sun says, that when I so desire
I have the strength to stay him from exercising his power upon his
subjects, and I should much esteem the privilege of wedding your
daughter. But as you would single out for that honour the most powerful
person in the world, you must seek out His Majesty the Wind, against
whom I have no strength, for as soon as he competes with me for
supremacy I must fain fly away to the ends of the earth."
"You surprise me," said the Rat, "but I take your word for it. I would,
therefore, ask you whether His Majesty the Wind will be this way
shortly, and where I may best meet him."
"I am afraid I cannot tell you at the moment when he is likely to be
this way. He usually announces his coming by harrying some of my
subjects who act as my outposts, but, as you see, they are now all
resting quietly. His Majesty is at this moment, I believe, holding a
court far out in the Eastern Seas. Were I you I would go down to the
seashore and await his coming. He is often somewhat inclined to be
short-tempered by the time he gets up into these mountainous parts,
owing to the obstructions he has met with on his journey, and he will
have had few of these vexatious annoyances during his ride over the
sea."
Now, although from the slopes of the mountain the sea looked not very
far distant, it was in reality a long way for a delicately-nurtured
young lady such as Yuki, and every mile of the journey that she had to
traverse increased her querulousness. Her father had often boasted of
the journeys that he had taken down to the coast, free of cost,
concealed in a truck-load of rice, and she would take no excuses that
there was no railway to the point at which they were to await His
Highness the Wind, although had there been it would never have done for
a party engaged on such an embassy to ride in a railway truck. Nor was
her humour improved by the time they had to wait in the very second-rate
accommodation afforded by a fishing hamlet, as none of them were
accustomed to a fish fare. But after many days there were signs that the
great personage was arriving, and they watched with some trepidation his
passage over the sea, although when, in due time, he neared the shore
they could hardly credit the Cloud's assurance as to his strength, for
he seemed the personification of all that was gentle; and Madame Rat at
once interposed the remark that you should never judge a person's
character by what you hear, and that the Cloud evidently owed the Wind a
grudge.
So the Rat at once unburdened himself to the Wind as it came over the
water towards him, making its face ripple with smiles. And the Wind
itself was in the fairest good humour and addressed the Rat as follows:
"Mr. Cloud is a flatterer, and knows full well that I have no power
against him when he really comes up against me in one of his thunderous
moods. To call me the most powerful person in the world is nonsense.
Where do you come from? Why, in that very village there is one stronger
than me, namely, the high wall that fences in the house of your good
neighbour. If your daughter must fain marry the strongest thing in the
world, wed her to the wall. You will find him a very stalwart spouse. I
wish you good day. I am sorry I cannot offer you a seat in my chariot,
but I am not going in the direction of that wall to-day, else I should
have had much pleasure in introducing your honourable self to my
powerful antagonist."
By this time the party was getting much disheartened, and the stress of
the journey and the chagrin of so many disappointments were beginning to
tell on O Yuki San's beauty. But Mr. Rat said there was nothing for it
but to return home; he knew the wall in question very well, but had no
idea it stood so high in the world's estimation--he had always thought
of it as somewhat of a dullard.
So they trudged homewards, and it was weary work, for the Cloud had
hidden the Sun, and the Wind had fretted the Cloud, who showed his
ill-humour by discharging a surplusage of moisture he had in his pocket,
and they approached their home wet through, bedraggled and worn out. As
luck would have it, just as they gained the wall which the wind had
singled out for its power, a heavier downpour than ever came on and they
were glad to take shelter under the lee of the wall. Now Mr. Wall had
always been known for his inquisitive nature, which, it is said, arose
from one side of his face never being able to see what was going on on
the other; and so hearing his leeward side addressing Mr. Rat, and
ascertaining that he had come from the sea, the windward side at once
asked whether he had any tidings of that scoundrel the Wind, who was
always coming and chafing his complexion.
"Why," said Mr. Rat, "we met him but recently, and he desired to be
remembered to you, who, he said, was the strongest person in the world."
"I the strongest! It shows his ignorance. Why, only yesterday your
nephew, the big brown rat, because he would not be at the trouble of
going round, must needs gnaw a hole through me. The strongest thing in
the world! Why, next time the wind comes this way he'll rush through the
hole and be telling your nephew that he's the strongest person in the
world."
At this moment the rain stopped, the clouds rolled by, and the sun shone
out, and Mr. and Mrs. Rat went home congratulating themselves that they
had not had to demean themselves by proposing their daughter in marriage
to a neighbour with such a false character.
And a month afterwards O Yuki San expressed her determination to marry
her cousin, and her parents were fain to give their consent, for had he
not proved himself to be the most powerful person in the world?
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ONE WINTER a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with cold. He had compassion on it, and taking it up, placed it in his bosom. The Snake was quickly revived by the warmth, and resuming its natural instincts, bit its benefactor, inflicting on him ... The Farmer and the Stork
A FARMER placed nets on his newly-sown plowlands and caught a number of Cranes, which came to pick up his seed. With them he trapped a Stork that had fractured his leg in the net and was earnestly beseeching the Farmer to spare his life. "Pray sav... The Farmer The Spaniel And The Cat
Why knits my dear her angry brow? What rude offence alarms you now? I said, that DELIA'S fair; 'tis true, But did I say she equall'd you? Can't I another's face commend, Or to her virtues be a friend, But instantly your forehead l...