The Black Bowl

: Japanese Fairy Tales

Long ago, in a part of the country not very remote from Kioto, the great

gay city, there dwelt an honest couple. In a lonely place was their

cottage, upon the outskirts of a deep wood of pine trees. Folks had it

that the wood was haunted. They said it was full of deceiving foxes;

they said that beneath the mossy ground the elves built their kitchens;

they said that long-nosed Tengu had tea-parties in the forest thrice a

month, and that the fairies' children played at hide-and-seek there

every morning before seven. Over and above all this they didn't mind

saying that the honest couple were queer in their ways, that the woman

was a wise woman, and that the man was a warlock--which was as may be.

But sure it was that they did no harm to living soul, that they lived as

poor as poor, and that they had one fair daughter. She was as neat and

pretty as a princess, and her manners were very fine; but for all that

she worked as hard as a boy in the rice-fields, and within doors she was

the housewife indeed, for she washed and cooked and drew water. She

went barefoot in a grey homespun gown, and tied her back hair with a

tough wistaria tendril. Brown she was and thin, but the sweetest

beggar-maid that ever made shift with a bed of dry moss and no supper.



By-and-by the good man her father dies, and the wise woman her mother

sickens within the year, and soon she lies in a corner of the cottage

waiting for her end, with the maid near her crying bitter tears.



"Child," says the mother, "do you know you are as pretty as a princess?"



"Am I that?" says the maid, and goes on with her crying.



"Do you know that your manners are fine?" says the mother.



"Are they, then?" says the maid, and goes on with her crying.



"My own baby," says the mother, "could you stop your crying a minute and

listen to me?"



So the maid stopped crying and put her head close by her mother's on the

poor pillow.



"Now listen," says the mother, "and afterwards remember. It is a bad

thing for a poor girl to be pretty. If she is pretty and lonely and

innocent, none but the gods will help her. They will help you, my poor

child, and I have thought of a way besides. Fetch me the great black

rice-bowl from the shelf."



The girl fetched it.



"See, now, I put it on your head and all your beauty is hidden away."



"Alack, mother," said the poor child, "it is heavy."



"It will save you from what is heavier to bear," said the mother. "If

you love me, promise me that you will not move it till the time comes."



"I promise! I promise! But how shall I know when the time comes?"



"That you shall know.... And now help me outside, for the sweet morning

dawns and I've a fancy to see the fairies' children once again, as they

run in the forest."



So the child, having the black bowl upon her head, held her mother in

her arms in a grassy place near the great trees, and presently they saw

the fairies' children threading their way between the dark trunks as

they played at hide-and-seek. Their bright garments fluttered, and they

laughed lightly as they went. The mother smiled to see them; before

seven she died very sweetly as she smiled.



When her little store of rice was done, the maid with the wooden bowl

knew well enough that she must starve or go and find more. So first she

tended her father's and mother's graves and poured water for the dead,

as is meet, and recited many a holy text. Then she bound on her sandals,

kilted her grey skirts to show her scarlet petticoat, tied her household

gods in a blue printed handkerchief, and set out all alone to seek her

fortunes, the brave girl!



For all her slenderness and pretty feet she was a rarely odd sight, and

soon she was to know it. The great black bowl covered her head and

shadowed her face. As she went through a village two women looked up

from washing in the stream, stared and laughed.



"It's a boggart come alive," says one.



"Out upon her," cries the other, "for a shameless wench! Out upon her

false modesty to roam the country thus with her head in a black bowl, as

who should cry aloud to every passing man, 'Come and see what is

hidden!' It is enough to make a wholesome body sick."



On went the poor maid, and sometimes the children pelted her with mud

and pebbles for sport. Sometimes she was handled roughly by village

louts, who scoffed and caught at her dress as she went; they even laid

hands upon the bowl itself and sought to drag it from her head by force.

But they only played at that game once, for the bowl stung them as

fiercely as if it had been a nettle, and the bullies ran away howling.



The beggar-maiden might seek her fortune, but it was very hard to find.

She might ask for work; but see, would she get it? None were wishful to

employ a girl with a black bowl on her head.



At last, on a fine day when she was tired out, she sat her upon a stone

and began to cry as if her heart would break. Down rolled her tears from

under the black bowl. They rolled down her cheeks and reached her white

chin.



A wandering ballad-singer passed that way, with his biwa slung across

his back. He had a sharp eye and marked the tears upon the maid's white

chin. It was all he could see of her face, and, "Oh, girl with the black

bowl on your head," quoth he, "why do you sit weeping by the roadside?"



"I weep," she answered, "because the world is hard. I am hungry and

tired.... No one will give me work or pay me money."



"Now that's unfortunate," said the ballad-singer, for he had a kind

heart; "but I haven't a rin of my own, or it would be yours. Indeed I

am sorry for you. In the circumstances the best I can do for you is to

make you a little song." With that he whips his biwa round, thrums on

it with his fingers and starts as easy as you please. "To the tears on

your white chin," he says, and sings:



"The white cherry blooms by the roadside,

How black is the canopy of cloud!

The wild cherry droops by the roadside,

Beware of the black canopy of cloud.

Hark, hear the rain, hear the rainfall

From the black canopy of cloud.

Alas, the wild cherry, its sweet flowers are marred,

Marred are the sweet flowers, forlorn on the spray!"



"Sir, I do not understand your song," said the girl with the bowl on her

head.



"Yet it is plain enough," said the ballad-singer, and went his way. He

came to the house of a passing rich farmer. In he went, and they asked

him to sing before the master of the house.



"With all the will in the world," says the ballad-singer. "I will sing

him a new song that I have just made." So he sang of the wild cherry and

the great black cloud.



When he had made an end, "Tell us the interpretation of your song," says

the master of the house.



"With all the will in the world," quoth the ballad-singer. "The wild

cherry is the face of a maiden whom I saw sitting by the wayside. She

wore a great black wooden bowl upon her head, which is the great black

cloud in my song, and from under it her tears flowed like rain, for I

saw the drops upon her white chin. And she said that she wept for

hunger, and because no one would give her work nor pay her money."



"Now I would I might help the poor girl with the bowl on her head," said

the master of the house.



"That you may if you wish," quoth the ballad-singer. "She sits but a

stone's throw from your gate."



The long and short of it was that the maid was put to labour in the rich

farmer's harvest-fields. All the day long she worked in the waving rice,

with her grey skirts kilted and her sleeves bound back with cords. All

day long she plied the sickle, and the sun shone down upon the black

bowl; but she had food to eat and good rest at night, and was well

content.



She found favour in her master's eyes, and he kept her in the fields

till all the harvest was gathered in. Then he took her into his house,

where there was plenty for her to do, for his wife was but sickly. Now

the maiden lived well and happily as a bird, and went singing about her

labours. And every night she thanked the august gods for her good

fortune. Still she wore the black bowl upon her head.



At the New Year time, "Bustle, bustle," says the farmer's wife; "scrub

and cook and sew; put your best foot foremost, my dear, for we must have

the house look at its very neatest."



"To be sure, and with all my heart," says the girl, and she put her back

into the work; "but, mistress," she says, "if I may be so bold as to

ask, are we having a party, or what?"



"Indeed we are, and many of them," says the farmer's wife. "My son that

is in Kioto, the great and gay, is coming home for a visit."



Presently home he comes, the handsome young man. Then the neighbours

were called in, and great was the merry-making. They feasted and they

danced, they jested and they sang, many a bowl of good red rice they

ate, and many a cup of good sake they drank. All this time the girl,

with bowl on her head, plied her work modestly in the kitchen, and well

out of the way she was--the farmer's wife saw to that, good soul! All

the same, one fine day the company called for more wine, and the wine

was done, so the son of the house takes up the sake bottle and goes

with it himself to the kitchen. What should he see there but the maiden

sitting upon a pile of faggots, and fanning the kitchen fire with a

split bamboo fan!



"My life, but I must see what is under that black bowl," says the

handsome young man to himself. And sure enough he made it his daily

care, and peeped as much as he could, which was not very much; but

seemingly it was enough for him, for he thought no more of Kioto, the

great and gay, but stayed at home to do his courting.



His father laughed and his mother fretted, the neighbours held up their

hands, all to no purpose.



"Oh, dear, dear maiden with the wooden bowl, she shall be my bride and

no other. I must and will have her," cried the impetuous young man, and

very soon he fixed the wedding-day himself.



When the time came, the young maidens of the village went to array the

bride. They dressed her in a fair and costly robe of white brocade, and

in trailing hakama of scarlet silk, and on her shoulders they hung a

cloak of blue and purple and gold. They chattered, but as for the bride

she said never a word. She was sad because she brought her bridegroom

nothing, and because his parents were sore at his choice of a

beggar-maid. She said nothing, but the tears glistened on her white

chin.



"Now off with the ugly old bowl," cried the maidens; "it is time to

dress the bride's hair and to do it with golden combs." So they laid

hands to the bowl and would have lifted it away, but they could not move

it.



"Try again," they said, and tugged at it with all their might. But it

would not stir.



"There's witchcraft in it," they said; "try a third time." They tried a

third time, and still the bowl stuck fast, but it gave out fearsome

moans and cries.



"Ah! Let be, let be for pity's sake," said the poor bride, "for you make

my head ache."



They were forced to lead her as she was to the bridegroom's presence.



"My dear, I am not afraid of the wooden bowl," said the young man.



So they poured the sake from the silver flagon, and from the silver

cup the two of them drank the mystic "Three Times Three" that made them

man and wife.



Then the black bowl burst asunder with a loud noise, and fell to the

ground in a thousand pieces. With it fell a shower of silver and gold,

and pearls and rubies and emeralds, and every jewel of price. Great was

the astonishment of the company as they gazed upon a dowry that for a

princess would have been rich and rare.



But the bridegroom looked into the bride's face. "My dear," he said,

"there are no jewels that shine like your eyes."



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