Children’s Stories from Japanese Fairy Tales and Legends by Harry G.Theaker

Author:Harry G.Theaker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd

“MY SLEEP HAS BEEN DISTURBED BY A NOISE ABOVE THE CEILING”

But Raiko, instead of recovering, grew weaker and weaker. At last one day he asked his head servant who it was that brought him medicine every night, but the servant answered that he knew nothing about the medicine, and that there was no acolyte in the house. The doctor also replied to the same effect.

Raiko now became suspicious and said to himself, “Some malevolent supernatural being is taking advantage of my illness and trying to cause my death. When the boy comes again to-night I will find out his real form. He may be a fox or a goblin in disguise.”

When midnight struck, the boy as usual appeared. Raiko calmly took the cup of medicine from the boy, but instead of drinking it, he threw the cup at the boy’s eyes so as to blind him. Then jumping up he seized the sword that lay beside his bed and cut at the head of the strange boy. The acolyte screamed with rage and pain, then with a movement as quick as lightning he threw something at Raiko and disappeared from the room.

Marvellous to say, the thing that was thrown at Raiko spread into a large white sticky web, which clung to him so tight that he could scarcely move or breathe. Then Raiko whirled his sword round and cut the clinging meshes and freed himself at last with great difficulty. He called for his men, and then sank exhausted on his bed, for he was nearly choked by the mysterious web.

Great was the consternation of the retainer who on entering the room found his master lying almost unconscious under the meshes of the huge spider’s web. Other servants came running in and gave Raiko a drug to revive him. As soon as Raiko was conscious again, he exclaimed, “Look, a goblin spider has been here! Hunt it down!”

The strange creature had already gone, and they could nowhere find it. On their careful searching, however, they found red drops of blood on the mats and along the corridors, which showed that the creature had been severely wounded. So Raiko’s men followed the red trail, out into the garden, across the street to the field till they came to a big cave in a hill, and here the blood-drops ceased.

There in the cave they found a huge monster spider writhing with pain and bleeding from a deep sword-cut on the head. They entered the cave with drawn swords, and after a great combat finally killed the creature and carried it to Raiko.

“It was this goblin spider then that cast upon me that wondrous web! Of all my adventures, this certainly is the strangest,” said Raiko.

From that time the acolyte never appeared again, and Raiko soon recovered his health. On hearing of this strange event people heaved a sigh of relief and said to one another, “It was indeed lucky that Raiko, the killer of the goblin of Oye Yania, was not slain by the goblin Spider.

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