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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30024 ***
+
+Transcriber's Note: Text is heavily illustrated, so the illustration
+tags within have been removed to avoid congestion.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+JAPANESE FAIRY TALES, Nº. 8.
+
+THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA
+
+BY B. H. CHAMBERLAIN
+
+GRIFFITH FARRAN & CO., LONDON & SYDNEY, N.S.W.
+
+
+
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
+
+
+
+
+#THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA.#
+
+
+Long, long ago there lived on the coast of the sea of Japan a young
+fisherman named Urashima, a kindly lad and clever with his rod and
+line.
+
+Well, one day he went out in his boat to fish. But instead of catching
+any fish, what do you think he caught? Why! a great big tortoise, with
+a hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Now I
+must tell you something which very likely you don't know; and that is
+that tortoises always live a thousand years,--at least Japanese
+tortoises do. So Urashima thought to himself: "A fish would do for my
+dinner just as well as this tortoise,--in fact better. Why should I go
+and kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another
+nine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won't be so cruel. I am
+sure mother wouldn't like me to." And with these words, he threw the
+tortoise back into the sea.
+
+The next thing that happened was that Urashima went to sleep in his
+boat; for it was one of those hot summer days when almost everybody
+enjoys a nap of an afternoon. And as he slept, there came up from
+beneath the waves a beautiful girl, who got into the boat and said: "I
+am the daughter of the Sea-God, and I live with my father in the Dragon
+Palace beyond the waves. It was not a tortoise that you caught just
+now, and so kindly threw back into the water instead of killing it. It
+was myself. My father the Sea-God had sent me to see whether you were
+good or bad.
+
+"We now know that you are a good, kind boy who doesn't like
+to do cruel things; and so I have come to fetch you. You shall marry me,
+if you like; and we will live happily together for a thousand years in
+the Dragon Palace beyond the deep blue sea."
+
+So Urashima took one oar, and the Sea-God's daughter took the other; and
+they rowed, and they rowed, and they rowed till at last they came to the
+Dragon Palace where the Sea-God lived and ruled as King over all the
+dragons and the tortoises and the fishes.
+
+Oh dear! what a lovely place it was! The walls of the Palace were of
+coral, the trees had emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries, the
+fishes' scales were of silver, and the dragons' tails of solid gold.
+Just think of the very most beautiful, glittering things that you have
+ever seen, and put them all together, and then you will know what this
+Palace looked like. And it all belonged to Urashima; for was he not
+the son-in-law of the Sea-God, the husband of the lovely Dragon
+Princess?
+
+Well, they lived on happily for three years, wandering about every day
+among the beautiful trees with emerald leaves and ruby berries. But one
+morning Urashima said to his wife: "I am very happy here. Still I want
+to go home and see my father and mother and brothers and sisters. Just
+let me go for a short time, and I'll soon be back again." "I don't like
+you to go," said she; "I am very much afraid that something dreadful
+will happen. However, if you will go, there is no help for it. Only you
+must take this box, and be very careful not to open it. If you open it,
+you will never be able to come back here."
+
+So Urashima promised to take great care of the box, and not to open it
+on any account; and then, getting into his boat, he rowed off, and at
+last landed on the shore of his own country.
+
+But what had happened while he had been away? Where had his father's
+cottage gone to? What had become of the village where he used to live?
+The mountains indeed were there as before; but the trees on them had
+been cut down. The little brook that ran close by his father's cottage
+was still running; but there were no women washing clothes in it any
+more. It seemed very strange that everything should have changed so
+much in three short years. So as two men chanced to pass along the
+beach, Urashima went up to them and said: "Can you tell me please
+where Urashima's cottage, that used to stand here, has been moved
+to?"--"Urashima?" said they; "why! it was four hundred years ago that
+he was drowned out fishing. His parents, and his brothers, and their
+grandchildren are all dead long ago. It is an old, old story. How can
+you be so foolish as to ask after his cottage? It fell to pieces
+hundreds of years ago."
+
+Then it suddenly flashed across Urashima's mind that the Sea-God's
+Palace beyond the waves, with its coral walls and its ruby fruits and
+its dragons with tails of solid gold, must be part of fairy-land, and
+that one day there was probably as long as a year in this world, so
+that his three years in the Sea-God's Palace had really been hundreds
+of years. Of course there was no use in staying at home, now that all
+his friends were dead and buried, and even the village had passed away.
+So Urashima was in a great hurry to get back to his wife, the Dragon
+Princess beyond the sea. But which was the way? He couldn't find it
+with no one to show it to him. "Perhaps," thought he, "if I open the box
+which she gave me, I shall be able to find the way." So he disobeyed her
+orders not to open the box,--or perhaps he forgot them, foolish boy that
+he was. Anyhow he opened the box; and what do you think came out of it?
+Nothing but a white cloud which floated away over the sea. Urashima
+shouted to the cloud to stop, rushed about and screamed with sorrow; for
+he remembered now what his wife had told him, and how, after opening the
+box, he should never be able to go to the Sea-God's Palace again. But
+soon he could neither run nor shout any more.
+
+Suddenly his hair grew as white as snow, his face got wrinkled, and his
+back bent like that of a very old man. Then his breath stopped short,
+and he fell down dead on the beach.
+
+Poor Urashima! He died because he had been foolish and disobedient. If
+only he had done as he was told, he might have lived another thousand
+years. Wouldn't you like to go and see the Dragon Palace beyond the
+waves, where the Sea-God lives and rules as King over the Dragons and
+the tortoises and the fishes, where the trees have emeralds for leaves
+and rubies for berries, where the fishes' tails are of silver and the
+dragons' tails all of solid gold?
+
+
+_Printed by the Kobunsha in Tokyo, Japan._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fisher-Boy Urashima, by Anonymous
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 30024 ***