Excerpt from The Old Bamboo-Hewer's Story (Taketori No Okina No Monogatari): The Earliest of the Japanese Romances, Written in the Tenth Century
Fonusau there lived an old man, a bamboo-bower, who bowed bamboos on the bosky hill side, and manywise he wrought them to serve men's needs, and his name was Sanugi no Miyakko.' Now one day, while plying the hatchet in a grove of bamboos, was he suddenly ware of a tall stem, whence streamed forth through the gloom a dazzling light. Much marvelling, he drew nigh to the reed, and saw that the glory proceeded from the heart thereof, and he I looked again and behold a tiny creature, a palm's breadth in stature and of rare loveliness, which stood midmost the splendour. Then he said to himself, Day after day, from/i dawn to dusk, toil I among these bamboo-reeds, and this child that abides amidst them I may surely claim as mine own. So he put forth his' hand, and took the tiny being.
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