The Boy Who Drew Cats and Other Japanese Fairy Tales by Lafcadio Hearn & Francis Davis

Author:Lafcadio Hearn & Francis Davis [Hearn, Lafcadio]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780486159546
Publisher: Dover Publications
Published: 2012-10-23T04:00:00+00:00

The Hare of Inaba

NOW, THERE were once eighty-one brothers, who were Princes in the land. They were all jealous of one another, each one wishing to be King, to rule over the others, and over the whole Kingdom. Besides this, each one wanted to marry the same Princess. She was the Princess of Yakami in Inaba.

At last they made up their minds that they would go together to Inaba, and each one try to persuade the Princess to marry him. Although eighty of these brothers were jealous of one another, yet they all agreed in hating, and being unkind to the eighty-first, who was good and gentle, and did not like their rough, quarrelsome ways. When they set out upon their journey, they made the poor eighty-first brother walk behind them, and carry the bag, just as if he had been their servant, although he was their own brother, and as much a Prince as any of them all.

By and by, the eighty Princes came to Cape Keta, and there they found a poor hare, with all his fur plucked out, lying down very sick and miserable. The eighty Princes said to the hare:

“We will tell you what you should do. Go and bathe in the sea water, and then lie down on the slope of a high mountain, and let the wind blow upon you. That will soon make your fur grow, we promise you.”

So the poor hare believed them, and went and bathed in the sea, and afterwards lay down in the sun and the wind to dry. But, as the salt water dried, the skin of his body all cracked and split with the sun and the wind, so that he was in terrible pain, and lay there crying, in a much worse state than he was before.

Now the eighty-first brother was a long way behind the others, because he had the luggage to carry, but at last he came up staggering under the weight of the heavy bag. When he saw the hare he asked:

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