Big tears ran down Visu's withered cheeks as he said in a husky voice: "I have lost my manhood. I have prayed when my dear ones starved and needed the labour of my once strong hands. Old woman, remember my last words: if you pray, work too!"
We do not know how long the poor but repentant Visu lived after he returned from his strange adventures. His white spirit is still said to haunt Fuji-yama when the moon shines brightly.
[1] She married Ninigi, and is referred to in Chapter I.
[2] See the last section of this chapter.
[3] There is some confusion here, for in actual fact Lake Biwa is a hundred and forty miles distant from Fuji—too great a distance, one would imagine, for even a miraculous mountain to look into. Legend asserts that Fuji came from the earth in a single night, while Lake Biwa sank simultaneously. Professor Chamberlain writes: "May we not have here an echo of some early eruption, which resulted in the formation, not indeed of Lake Biwa....but of one of the numerous small lakes at the foot of the mountain?"
[4] A game introduced from China resembling chess, but a more complicated variety than the game with which we are familiar.
[5] Fox legends have been fully described in Chapter V.