While their poor little bodies nestled together, striving to keep each other warm, the hard-hearted landlord entered, and finding that there was no one to pay the rent, he turned the children out of the house, each clad only in one thin kimono. They tried to reach a temple of Kwannon, but the snow was too heavy, and they hid behind their old home. A futon of snow covered them and they fell asleep on the merciful bosom of the Gods, and were finally buried in the cemetery of the Temple of Kwannon-of-the-Thousand-Arms.
When the innkeeper heard this sad story he gave the futon to the priests of the Kwannon temple, prayers were recited for the children's souls, and from that hour the futon ceased to murmur its plaintive cries.
The Return
In the village of Mochida-no-ura there lived a peasant. He was extremely poor, but, notwithstanding, his wife bore him six children. Directly a child was born, the cruel father flung it into a river and pretended that it had died at birth, so that his six children were murdered in this horrible way.
At length, as years went by, the peasant found himself in a more prosperous position, and when a seventh child was born, a boy, he was much gratified and loved him dearly.
One night the father took the child in his arms, and wandered out into the garden, murmuring ecstatically: "What a beautiful summer night!"
The babe, then only five months old, for a moment assumed the speech of a man, saying: "The moon looks just as it did when you last threw me in the river!"
When the infant had uttered these words he became like other children; but the peasant, now truly realising the enormity of his crime, from that day became a priest.
A Test of Love
There was once a certain fair maiden who, contrary to Japanese custom, was permitted to choose her own husband. Many suitors sought her hand, and they brought her gifts and fair poems, and said many loving words to her. She spoke kindly to each suitor, saying: "I will marry the man who is brave enough to bear a certain test I shall impose upon him, and whatever that test of love may be, I expect him, on the sacred honour of a samurai, not to divulge it." The suitors readily complied with these conditions, but one by one they left her, with horror upon their faces, ceased their wooing, but breathed never a word concerning the mysterious and awful secret.