The gods hastened from far and near to see whence came the delicious smell. They drank of the saké and it was very good. Then they danced and sang and laughed in glee. And as they danced, one goddess pulled out two hairs from a deer and cast them far away, and lo! from the mountains came two herds of deer. Then another goddess plucked two scales from a fish and threw them far into the river, and behold, shoals of fish swam from the sea.
Then were the Ainu much rejoiced, and men went proudly forth upon the mountains to hunt the deer; and others sought the river and caught many fish. And from that day there was always fish and flesh in the land of the Ainu, and there was no more famine.
Footnotes
[30] Cricket.
[31] Prayer-plume.
THE GOBLIN TREE
A Samurai dwelt in the Oni province and his name was Satsuma Shichizaemon. He had a garden, the most beautiful of any in the village. It was filled with flowering plants, and the shrubs had a delicious fragrance which filled the air. Golden-hearted lilies floated upon the tiny lake, dwarf pines waved their branches over the water’s edge, and above all, dark and silent, towered a huge enoki, or goblin tree.
This tree had stood there for centuries, and no one had dared to cut a branch or even to pull one of its leaves.
Shichizaemon, however, was of a bad heart, and had no reverence for the things of his fathers. He wished the view from his window not to be hidden, and the enoki stood between him and the valley. So he gave orders to have the tree cut down.
That night his mother dreamed a dream. She saw before her a terrible dragon-like monster whose forked tongue spit fire, and who said to her, “Mother of Satsuma Shichizaemon, beware! Your son shall die and all his house if he harm the enoki, for the spirits of the trees will not suffer insult to the goblin tree.”