Folk Tales Every Child Should Know

ngrateful man will be ill spoken of by all the world. And yet even birds and beasts will show gratitud

child to wait upon him, but prepared his food with his own hands. Night and morning he recited the prayer "Namu Amida Butsu,"[3] intent upon that alone. Although the fame of his virtue did not reach far, yet his

see who it was, and there he beheld an old badger standing. Any ordinary man would have been greatly alarmed at the apparition; but the priest, being su

but now I am growing old, and this severe cold is more than I can bear. I pray you to let me

ess state the beast was reduced to

tter: make haste and com

n by the fire began to warm itself; and the priest, with renewed fervour, recited hi

as the night wore on, the badger did not arrive, he used to miss it, and wonder why it did not come. When the winter was over, and the springtime came at the end of the second month, the badger gave up its visits, and was no more seen; but, on the return of the winter, the beast resumed its old habit of coming to the hut. When this practice had go

d, and forsaken the pleasures of this life, I have no desire to gratify, yet I own I should like to possess three riyos in gold. Food and raiment I receive by the favour of the villagers, so I take no heed for those things. Were I to die to-morrow, and attain my wish of being born again into the next world, the same kind folk have promised to meet and bury my body. Thus, although I have no other reason to wish for money, still if I had three riyos I would offer them up at some holy shrine, that masses and prayers might be said for me, whereby I might enter into salvation. Yet I would not get this money by violent or unlawful means; I only think of what

id not like to come without the money, or that it had been killed in an attempt to steal it; and he blamed himself for having added to his sins for no purp

he old man heard a voice near his door cal

there, sure enough, was the badger. The priest, in great delight, cried out: "And so you are safe and sound,

to steal the hidden treasure of some other man, you could not apply to a sacred purpose money which had been obtained at the expense of his sorrow. So I went to the island of Sado,[4] and gathering the sand and earth which had been cast away as worthless by the miners, fused it afr

account of a foolish speech of mine? I have obt

ony, the beast said: "In doing this I have but fulfilled my o

n I do this, when people see a poor old priest with a sum of money quite unsuited to his station, they will think it very suspicious, and I shall have to tell the tale as it occurred; but I shall say that the badger that gave me the money

he dog of Totoribé Yorodzu written in the Annals of Japan? I[5] have heard that many anecdotes of this nature have been collected and print