{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30024/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30024","id":"gutenberg_30024","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30024","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Fairy tales","Folklore -- Japan"],"text":"Transcriber's Note: Text is heavily illustrated, so the illustration\ntags within have been removed to avoid congestion.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nJAPANESE FAIRY TALES, N\u00c2\u0219. 8.\n\nTHE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA\n\nBY B. H. CHAMBERLAIN\n\nGRIFFITH FARRAN & CO., LONDON & SYDNEY, N.S.W.\n\n\n\n\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED.\n\n\n\n\n#THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA.#\n\n\nLong, long ago there lived on the coast of the sea of Japan a young\nfisherman named Urashima, a kindly lad and clever with his rod and\nline.\n\nWell, one day he went out in his boat to fish. But instead of catching\nany fish, what do you think he caught? Why! a great big tortoise, with\na hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Now I\nmust tell you something which very likely you don't know; and that is\nthat tortoises always live a thousand years,--at least Japanese\ntortoises do. So Urashima thought to himself: \"A fish would do for my\ndinner just as well as this tortoise,--in fact better. Why should I go\nand kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another\nnine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won't be so cruel. I am\nsure mother wouldn't like me to.\" And with these words, he threw the\ntortoise back into the sea.\n\nThe next thing that happened was that Urashima went to sleep in his\nboat; for it was one of those hot summer days when almost everybody\nenjoys a nap of an afternoon. And as he slept, there came up from\nbeneath the waves a beautiful girl, who got into the boat and said: \"I\nam the daughter of the Sea-God, and I live with my father in the Dragon\nPalace beyond the waves. It was not a tortoise that you caught just\nnow, and so kindly threw back into the water instead of killing it. It\nwas myself. My father the Sea-God had sent me to see whether you were\ngood or bad.\n\n\"We now know that you are a good, kind boy who doesn't like\nto do cruel things; and so I have come to fetch you. You shall marry me,\nif you like; and we will live happily together for a thousand years in\nthe Dragon Palace beyond the deep blue sea.\"\n\nSo Urashima took one oar, and the Sea-God's daughter took the other; and\nthey rowed, and they rowed, and they rowed till at last they came to the\nDragon Palace where the Sea-God lived and ruled as King over all the\ndragons and the tortoises and the fishes.\n\nOh dear! what a lovely place it was! The walls of the Palace were of\ncoral, the trees had emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries, the\nfishes' scales were of silver, and the dragons' tails of solid gold.\nJust think of the very most beautiful, glittering things that you have\never seen, and put them all together, and then you will know what this\nPalace looked like. And it all belonged to Urashima; for was he not\nthe son-in-law of the Sea-God, the husband of the lovely Dragon\nPrincess?\n\nWell, they lived on happily for three years, wandering about every day\namong the beautiful trees with emerald leaves and ruby berries. But one\nmorning Urashima said to his wife: \"I am very happy here. Still I want\nto go home and see my father and mother and brothers and sisters. Just\nlet me go for a short time, and I'll soon be back again.\" \"I don't like\nyou to go,\" said she; \"I am very much afraid that something dreadful\nwill happen. However, if you will go, there is no help for it. Only you\nmust take this box, and be very careful not to open it. If you open it,\nyou will never be able to come back here.\"\n\nSo Urashima promised to take great care of the box, and not to open it\non any account; and then, getting into his boat, he rowed off, and at\nlast landed on the shore of his own country.\n\nBut what had happened while he had been away? Where had his father's\ncottage gone to? What had become of the village where he used to live?\nThe mountains indeed were there as before; but the trees on them had\nbeen cut down. The little brook that ran close by his father's cottage\nwas still running; but there were no women washing clothes in it any\nmore. It seemed very strange that everything should have changed so\nmuch in three short years. So as two men chanced to pass along the\nbeach, Urashima went up to them and said: \"Can you tell me please\nwhere Urashima's cottage, that used to stand here, has been moved\nto?\"--\"Urashima?\" said they; \"why! it was four hundred years ago that\nhe was drowned out fishing. His parents, and his brothers, and their\ngrandchildren are all dead long ago. It is an old, old story. How can\nyou be so foolish as to ask after his cottage? It fell to pieces\nhundreds of years ago.\"\n\nThen it suddenly flashed across Urashima's mind that the Sea-God's\nPalace beyond the waves, with its coral walls and its ruby fruits and\nits dragons with tails of solid gold, must be part of fairy-land, and\nthat one day there was probably as long as a year in this world, so\nthat his three years in the Sea-God's Palace had really been hundreds\nof years. Of course there was no use in staying at home, now that all\nhis friends were dead and buried, and even the village had passed away.\nSo Urashima was in a great hurry to get back to his wife, the Dragon\nPrincess beyond the sea. But which was the way? He couldn't find it\nwith no one to show it to him. \"Perhaps,\" thought he, \"if I open the box\nwhich she gave me, I shall be able to find the way.\" So he disobeyed her\norders not to open the box,--or perhaps he forgot them, foolish boy that\nhe was. Anyhow he opened the box; and what do you think came out of it?\nNothing but a white cloud which floated away over the sea. Urashima\nshouted to the cloud to stop, rushed about and screamed with sorrow; for\nhe remembered now what his wife had told him, and how, after opening the\nbox, he should never be able to go to the Sea-God's Palace again. But\nsoon he could neither run nor shout any more.\n\nSuddenly his hair grew as white as snow, his face got wrinkled, and his\nback bent like that of a very old man. Then his breath stopped short,\nand he fell down dead on the beach.\n\nPoor Urashima! He died because he had been foolish and disobedient. If\nonly he had done as he was told, he might have lived another thousand\nyears. Wouldn't you like to go and see the Dragon Palace beyond the\nwaves, where the Sea-God lives and rules as King over the Dragons and\nthe tortoises and the fishes, where the trees have emeralds for leaves\nand rubies for berries, where the fishes' tails are of silver and the\ndragons' tails all of solid gold?\n\n\n_Printed by the Kobunsha in Tokyo, Japan._","title":"The Fisher-Boy Urashima","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":1213}