Then out came the old woman for the starch to starch her clothes.
You may believe she was angry. She caught the little sparrow roughly in her hand, and, alas and alack! she took a sharp, sharp scissors and cut his little tongue. Then she let him go.
Away and away flew the little sparrow, over hill and over dale.
“And a good riddance, too!” said the cruel old woman.
When the old man came home from the mountains he found his pet sparrow gone. And before long he knew all the tale. He lost no time, the good old man; he set out at once on foot, calling “Sparrow, sparrow, where are you, my tongue-cut sparrow?”
Over hill and over dale he went, calling “Sparrow, sparrow, where are you, my tongue-cut sparrow?”
At last and at length he came to the sparrow’s house, and the sparrow flew out to greet his master. Then there was a twittering, to be sure. The sparrow called his brothers and sisters and his children and his wife and his mother-in-law and his mother and his grandmother. And they all flew out to do the old man honour. They brought him into the house and they set him down upon mats of silk. Then they spread a great feast; red rice and daikon and fish, and who knows what all besides, and the very best saké to drink. The sparrow waited upon the good old man, and his brothers and sisters and his children and his wife and his mother-in-law and his mother and his grandmother with him.
After supper the sparrow danced, whilst his grandmother played the samisen and the good old man beat time.
It was a merry evening.
At last, “All good things come to an end,” says the old man; “I fear ’tis late and high time I was getting home.”