The Boy Who Drew Cats and Other Japanese Fairy Tales Read Online Free PDF Page A

cups, it looked like water; but, as it tasted all right, what did its looks signify?
    Well, there they were, feasting and singing; and the Dwarf had just pledged the Warrior in a goblet of hot steaming wine, when thud! thud! thud! like the tramp of an army, the fearful monster of whom the Dwarf had spoken was heard approaching. It sounded as if a continent were in motion; and on either side there seemed to be a row of a thousand men with lanterns. But the Warrior was able to make out, as the danger drew nearer, that all this fuss was made by a single creature, an enormous Centipede over a mile long; and that what had seemed like men with lanterns on either side of it, were in reality its own feet, of which it had exactly one thousand on each side of its body, all of them glistening and glinting with the sticky poison that oozed out of every pore.
    There was no time to be lost. The Centipede was already half-way down the mountain. So the Warrior snatched up his bow, a bow so big and heavy that it would have taken five ordinary men to pull it,—fitted an arrow into the bow-notch, and let fly.
    He was not one ever to miss his aim. The arrow struck right in the middle of the monster’s forehead. But alas! it rebounded as if that forehead had been made of brass.
    A second time did the Warrior take his bow and shoot. A second time did the arrow strike and rebound; and now the dreadful creature was down to the water’s edge, and would soon pollute the lake with its filthy poison. Said the Warrior to himself: “Nothing kills Centipedes so surely as human spittle.” And with these words, he spat on to the tip of the only arrow that remained to him (for there had been but three in his quiver). This time again the arrow hit the Centipede right in the middle of its forehead. But instead of rebounding, it went right in and came out again at the back of the creature’s head, so that the Centipede fell down dead, shaking the whole country-side like an earthquake, and the poisonous light on its two thousand feet darkening to a dull glare like that of the twilight of a stormy day.
    A second time did the Warrior take his bow and shoot.
    Then the Warrior found himself wafted back to his own castle; and round him stood a row of presents, on each of which were inscribed the words “From your grateful dwarf.” One of these presents was a large bronze bell, which the Warrior, who was a religious man as well as a brave one, hung up in the temple that contained the tombs of his ancestors. The second was a sword, which enabled him ever after to gain the victory over all his enemies. The third was a suit of armor which no arrow could penetrate. The fourth was a roll of silk, which never grew smaller, though he cut off large pieces from time to time to make himself a new court dress.
    The fifth was a bag of rice, which, though he took from it day after day for meals for himself, his family, and his trusty retainers, never got exhausted as long as he lived.
    And it was from this fifth and last present that he took his name and title of “My Lord Bag-o’-Rice”; for all the people thought that there was nothing stranger in the whole world than this wonderful bag, which made its owner such a rich and happy man.

The Wooden Bowl
    O NCE UPON a time there lived an old couple who had seen better days. Formerly they had been well to do, but misfortune came upon them, through no fault of their own, and in their old age they had become so poor that they were only just able to earn their daily bread.
    One joy, however, remained to them. This was their only child, a good and gentle maiden, of such wonderful beauty that in all that land she had no equal.
    At length the father fell sick and died, and the mother and her daughter had to work harder than ever. Soon the mother felt her strength failing her, and great was her sorrow at the thought of leaving her child alone in the world.
    The beauty of the maiden was so dazzling