One winter evening, I put my seven children to bed and tucked them in warmly. Then I went to join my husband in the next room. The charcoal glowed in the hibachi and all the doors of the house were tightly shut, for it was bitterly cold outside, and the first big...
I ventured alone in my frail boat and fell asleep. The boat drifted east, to the shore of the sweetest spot in the world. In the bright morning light, I found myself in the shadow of Fusan, the Wonder Mountain, and I knew I had come to Horaizan, the Isle of the Blest....
When the Festival of Bon arrived, the time of returning souls, the good folk of Yedo took lanterns and visited the graves of their loved ones. They would bring us food and flowers to care for us. On the night of the thirteenth day of the seventh month, my beloved...
The wonderful gazelle killed a seven-headed snake and freed the slaves imprisoned in this house. Even my master the sultan owes his riches to the gazelle. Because of the gazelle, he married the sultan’s daughter. But when he became a rich sultan, he forgot the...
My son is a powerful leader and an excellent hunter, which is why I was surprised that he came home empty-handed. “I have not returned empty-handed,” he said. “Have I ever done that? No, I brought back enough meat to feed us for many moons. I was tired, though. I left...
He was a sweet boy who had been terribly abused. He wanted to die, and who could blame him? He reached for me, thinking that I contained poison. But I did not. I was full of honey. He ate the honey and said to himself, “Folks say death is bitter, but it tastes...
I live in a tent, on an island, in a pond in the middle of a magnificent garden. My skin is as green as grass, and I wear a rose leaf on my head instead of a crown. I may look like a frog, but I know who I am, and I am not a frog. I am a princess, and the lion who...
According to popular opinion, the Devil (oui, c’est moi) steals souls, but permit me to change your impression. I merely claim the souls that are already mine. Take, for instance, the innkeeper. I have been keeping an eye on him for some time. I employed three...
We were consulted when the boy was born, and then everybody knew that the prince’s life would come to an end at the age of sixteen. On his sixteenth birthday, the lad disappeared while hunting in the forest. The men searched the woods, but soon gave up,...
I was born as a bull calf and I was very much loved by the peasant and his wife. They believed that I was wise, and that I understood everything they said to me. I was gentle and playful, and they grew so fond of me that they named me Peter Bull and sent me to the...
