How an Old Man Lost His Wen

Many, many years ago there lived a good old man with a wen, a lump as big as a tennis ball, growing out of his right cheek. He felt self-conscious about it, and it bothered him so much that for years he spent all his time and money trying to get rid of it. He tried everything he could think of. He went to doctors near and far and took every kind of medicine, swallowed and rubbed on, but nothing helped. The lump only grew bigger and bigger until it was almost the size of his face. In the end he gave up hope and resigned himself to carrying it around for the rest of his life.

One day the kitchen ran out of firewood, and since his wife needed some straight away, the old man took his ax and set off for the woods in the hills not far from home. It was a fine early autumn day, and he enjoyed the fresh air so much that he was in no hurry. The whole afternoon slipped by as he chopped, and he gathered a good pile of wood to take back to his wife. As evening came on, he turned for home.

He had not gone far down the mountain path when the sky clouded over and rain began to pour. He looked about for shelter, but there was not so much as a charcoal burner’s hut nearby. At last he spotted a big hole low down in the hollow trunk of a tree. He crawled in easily and sat down, hoping it was only a passing mountain shower.

But to his disappointment the rain fell harder and harder, and at last a fierce thunderstorm broke over the mountain. The thunder crashed so fearfully and the sky blazed so with lightning that the old man could hardly believe he was still alive, and he thought he would die of fright. At last, though, the sky cleared and the whole countryside glowed in the light of the setting sun. His spirits rose as he looked out at the lovely twilight, and he was just about to climb out of his odd hiding place when he heard what sounded like a number of people coming along. He thought his friends must have come looking for him and was delighted at the idea of jolly company on the way home.

But when he peeped out of the tree, what should he see coming toward him but hundreds of demons! The longer he looked, the more astonished he was. Some were as big as giants, some had enormous eyes far too large for the rest of them, some had ridiculously long noses, and some had mouths so wide they seemed to stretch from ear to ear. Every one of them had horns on its forehead. The old man was so startled that he lost his balance and tumbled out of the tree. Luckily the demons did not see him, for the tree stood back in the shadows, so he picked himself up and crept back inside.

As he sat there, wondering impatiently when he would ever get home, he heard merry music, and then some of the demons began to sing. “What are those creatures up to?” he said to himself. “I’ll take a look. It sounds very entertaining.”

Peeping out, he saw that the demon chief himself was sitting with his back against the very tree he was hiding in, and all the other demons were sitting round him, some drinking and some dancing. Food and wine were spread out on the ground, and the demons were plainly having a grand party and enjoying themselves enormously. Their strange capers made the old man laugh. “How funny!” he chuckled to himself. “I’m an old man now, but I’ve never seen anything so odd in all my life.”

He became so caught up in watching that he forgot himself, stepped out of the tree and stood there looking on.

The demon chief was holding a big cup of sake and watching one of the demons dance. After a while he said in a bored voice, “Your dancing is rather dull. I’m tired of watching it. Isn’t there anyone here who can dance better than this fellow?”

Now the old man had loved dancing all his life and was quite an expert, and he knew he could do much better than that demon. “Shall I go and dance for these demons and show them what a human being can do?” he said to himself. “It may be dangerous, for if I don’t please them, they may kill me!”

But his love of dancing soon got the better of his fear. Within a few minutes he could hold back no longer, and out he stepped in front of the whole company of demons and began to dance. Knowing that his life probably depended on pleasing these strange creatures, he put every bit of his skill and wit into it.

The demons were amazed at first to see a man joining their party so fearlessly, but their surprise soon turned to admiration. “How extraordinary!” cried the horned chief. “I’ve never seen such a skillful dancer! He dances wonderfully!”

When the old man had finished, the big demon said, “Thank you very much for your delightful dance. Now do us the honor of drinking a cup of wine with us,” and he handed him his biggest wine cup.

The old man thanked him humbly. “I never expected such kindness from your lordship. I’m afraid I’ve only spoiled your pleasant party with my clumsy dancing.”

“No, no,” said the big demon. “You must come often and dance for us. Your skill has given us great pleasure.”

The old man thanked him and promised he would.

“Then will you come back tomorrow, old man?”

“Certainly I will.”

“Then you must leave us something as a pledge that you will keep your word.”

“Whatever you like.”

“Now, what is the best thing for him to leave with us?” asked the chief, looking round.

One of the attendants kneeling behind the chief spoke up. “The pledge should be the most precious thing he owns. I see the old man has a wen on his right cheek, and mortal men think such a lump very lucky. Let my lord take the lump from the old man’s cheek, and he’ll be sure to come tomorrow, if only to get it back.”

“Very clever of you,” said the demon chief, nodding his horns approvingly. He stretched out a hairy arm and clawlike hand and took the great lump from the old man’s right cheek. Strange to say, at the demon’s touch it came away as easily as a ripe plum drops from a tree. And then, all at once, the whole merry band of demons vanished.

The old man was utterly bewildered, and for some time he hardly knew where he was. When at last he understood what had happened, he was overjoyed to find that the lump that had troubled him for so many years really was gone, and without the least pain. He felt his cheek for a scar, but his right cheek was as smooth as his left.

The sun had long since set, and a young moon hung like a silver crescent in the sky. Suddenly realizing how late it was, the old man hurried home, patting his right cheek all the way as if to make sure his good luck was real. He was so happy that he could not walk sensibly; he ran and danced the whole way home.

He found his wife very anxious, wondering what could have kept him so late. He soon told her everything that had happened since he left that afternoon. She was happy to see his relief when he showed her that the unwanted lump was gone.

Now next door to this good old couple lived another old man. He too had been plagued for years by a wen, on his left cheek, and he too had tried all sorts of things to get rid of it, with no success. He heard straight away from the servant about his neighbor’s good luck, so he came round that very evening and asked to be told everything about how the lump had been lost. The good old man told his neighbor the whole story. He described where to find the hollow tree to hide in and advised him to be there late in the afternoon, toward sunset.

The neighbor set off the next afternoon, and after searching for some time he found the hollow tree, just as described. He hid inside and waited for twilight.

Sure enough, the band of demons came at that hour and held a feast with dancing and singing. When this had gone on for a while, the chief looked round and said, “It’s time for the old man to come, as he promised. Why isn’t he here?”

Hearing this, the second old man ran out of his hiding place and knelt before the Oni. “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to say that!”

“Ah, you’re the old man from yesterday,” said the demon chief. “Thank you for coming. You must dance for us soon.”

So the old man stood up, opened his fan and began to dance. But he had never learned to dance and knew nothing of the proper steps and movements. He thought anything would do for demons, so he simply hopped about, flapping his arms and stamping his feet, copying as best he could any dancing he had ever seen.

The Oni were very displeased with this performance. “How badly he dances today!” they muttered among themselves.

Then the chief said to the old man, “Your dancing today is nothing like yesterday’s. We don’t want to see any more of it. We’ll give you back the pledge you left with us, and you must go away at once.” With that he took from a fold of his robe the lump he had taken from the good dancer’s face and flung it at the right cheek of the old man in front of him.

The lump stuck to his cheek as firmly as if it had always grown there, and no amount of tugging would pull it off. Instead of losing the lump on his left cheek as he had hoped, the second old man found to his horror that he had gained a second one on his right.

He put first one hand and then the other to his face, to make sure he was not dreaming some dreadful nightmare. But no, there was a great wen on the right side of his face now, just as on the left. The demons had all vanished, and there was nothing for him to do but trudge home. He went home disappointed, carrying two lumps instead of the one he had hoped to lose.

Where this story comes from

“How an Old Man Lost His Wen” is the twenty-first tale in Yei Theodora Ozaki’s Japanese Fairy Tales. A wen is an old word for a lump growing on the skin, and the whole story turns on the demons’ belief that mortal men think such a lump lucky.

Ozaki calls the demons Oni and describes them in comic detail, with giant eyes, long noses and mouths that stretch from ear to ear. Her ending compares the second man’s face to a gourd. This retelling leaves out that appearance-based joke and asks instead what the demons misunderstood.

Read the original: Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: children may want an adult to discuss the frightening demons and the way the tale treats a visible facial difference. The magical removal and transfer of a lump are not medical explanations.

A reward nobody intended

The demons do not remove the first man’s lump as a cure. They mistake it for something precious and take it as security for his return. The result delights him for a reason they do not understand. When the second man arrives, they repeat their mistake by treating him as yesterday’s dancer and returning the pledge to the wrong person.

The difference in dancing matters: the first man has practiced and enjoys it, while the second assumes any performance will do. But wanting relief from a facial lump is not itself greed or wrongdoing. Nor does a visible difference reveal character. The comic plot depends on mistaken identity and incompatible ideas of value, not on a sensible system of deserved bodies.

Write what each man and the chief thinks the lump is worth. Then imagine the second visitor introduces himself honestly and asks for help. What misunderstanding would that remove, and what could he still not control?

Questions to ask

• Why did the first old man decide to dance for the demons?
• What went wrong for the neighbor?
• Do you think the demons were fair? Why or why not?

Related stories

• The Story of the Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower — a jealous neighbor copies good luck and fails
• The Tongue-Cut Sparrow — two visitors with different motives choose different boxes
• The Ogre of Rashomon — another Japanese tale of Oni at twilight