THE HARE AND THE BADGER.
A Story from the Japanese.
BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS.
A good while ago there lived near the Clack-clack Mountains an old man and his wife, who, having no child, made a great deal of a pet hare. Every day the old man cut up food and set it out on a plate for his pet.
One day a badger came out of the forest, and in a trice drove away the hare, and eating up his dinner, licked the plate clean. Then, standing on his hind-legs, the badger blew out his belly until it was as round as a bladder and tight as a drum, and beating on it with his paws to show his victory, scampered off to the woods. But the old man, who was very angry, caught the badger, and tying him by the legs, hung him up head downward under the edges of the thatch in the shed where his old woman pounded millet. He then strapped a wooden frame to hold fagots on his back, and went out to the mountains to cut wood.
The badger, finding his legs pain him, began to cry, and begged the old woman to untie him, promising to help her pound the millet. The tired old dame, believing the sly beast, like a good-hearted soul laid down her pestle and loosened the cords round the beast's legs. The badger was so cramped at first that he could not stand; but when well able to move, he seized a knife to kill the old woman. The hare, seeing this, ran away to find the old man, if possible, and tell him. The badger, after stabbing the old woman, crushed her to death by upsetting the bureau upon her, and then threw her body into the mortar, and pounded her into a jelly. Setting the pot on to boil, he made the woman's flesh into a mess of soup, and ate all he could of it. Then the badger, by turning three double somersaults, turned himself into an old woman, looking exactly like the one he had just eaten. All being ready, he waited till the husband came home tired and hungry.
Soon the old man came back, thinking of nothing more than the hot supper he was soon to enjoy. Throwing down his fagots, he came into the house, and while he warmed his hands at the hearth, his wife (as he supposed) set the mess of soup and millet, with a slice of radish, before him on a tray. He fell to, and ate heartily, his wife (as he supposed) waiting dutifully near by till her lord was served. When the meal was finished he pulled out a sheet of soft mulberry paper from his bosom and wiped his old chops, smacking them well, as he thought what a good supper he had so much enjoyed. Just then the badger took on his real shape, and yelled out: "Old fool, you've eaten your own wife. Look in the drain, and you'll find her bones." And he puffed out his body, beat it like a drum, whisked his tail scornfully, and ran off.
Almost dead with grief and horror, the old man gathered up the bones of his wife, and decently buried them. Then he made a vow to take revenge on the badger. Just then the hare came back from the mountains, and after condoling with the old man, said he would also take revenge on the badger.
