“And all the while
The voice of the breeze
As it blows through the firs
That grow old together
Will yield us delight.”
In ancient days there lived a fisherman and his wife, and little daughter Matsue. There was nothing that Matsue loved to do more than to sit under the great pine tree. She was particularly fond of the pine needles that never seemed tired of falling to the ground. With these she fashioned a beautiful dress and sash, saying, “I will not wear these pine clothes until my wedding day.”
One day while Matsue was sitting under the pine tree, she sang the following song:
“No one so callous but he heaves a sigh
When o’er his head the withered cherry flowers
Come fluttering down. Who knows?—the spring’s soft showers
May be but tears shed by the sorrowing sky.”
While thus she sang Teogo stood on the steep shore of Sumiyoshi watching the flight of a heron. Up, up, it went into the blue sky, and Teogo saw it fly over the village where the fishfolk and their daughter lived.
Now Teogo was a youth who dearly loved adventure and he thought it would be very delightful to swim across the sea and discover the land over which the heron had flown. So one morning he dived into the sea and swam so hard and so long that the poor fellow found the waves spinning and dancing and saw the great sky bend down and try to touch him. Then he lay unconscious on the water; but the waves were kind to him after all, for they pressed him on and on till he was washed up at the very place where Matsue sat under the pine tree.
Matsue carefully dragged Teogo underneath its sheltering branches, and then set him down upon a couch of pine needles, where he soon regained consciousness and warmly thanked Matsue for her kindness.
Teogo did not go back to his own country, for, after a few happy months had gone by, he married Matsue and on her wedding morn she wore her dress and sash of pine needles.
When Matsue’s parents died her loss only seemed to make her love for Teogo the more. The older they grew the more they loved each other. Every night when the moon shone, they went hand in hand to the pine tree and with their little rake they made a couch for the morrow.
One night the great silver face of the moon peered through the branches of the pine tree and looked in vain for the two sitting together on a couch of pine needles. Their little rakes lay side by side and still the moon waited for the slow steps of these pine tree lovers. But that night they did not come. They had gone home to an everlasting place on the River of Souls.