The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy

Long ago in Kyoto there lived a brave soldier named Kintoki, who fell in love with a beautiful lady and married her. Not long afterward, through the spite of some so-called friends, he fell into disgrace at court and was dismissed. The blow weighed on him so heavily that he soon died, leaving his lovely young wife to face the world alone. Afraid of her husband’s enemies, she fled to the Ashigara Mountains, and there, in lonely forests where no one came but woodcutters, she gave birth to a little boy. She named him Kintaro, the Golden Boy.

The remarkable thing about this child was his strength. He grew stronger every year, and by the age of eight he could fell trees as fast as the woodcutters. His mother gave him a big ax, and he went out into the forest to help the woodcutters, who called him the Wonder-Child. His mother they called the Old Nurse of the Mountains, for they had no idea of her high rank. Another of Kintaro’s favorite games was smashing rocks and boulders. Just imagine how strong he was!

Unlike other boys, Kintaro grew up alone in the wild mountains. Having no playmates, he made friends with the animals, learned to understand them and to speak their strange language. Little by little they all grew tame and treated him as their master, and he used them as his servants and messengers. His special followers were the bear, the deer, the monkey and the hare. The bear often brought her cubs for him to romp with, and when she came to take them home, Kintaro rode on her back to her cave. He loved the deer too, and would throw his arms around its neck to show that its long horns did not scare him. What fun they all had together!

One day Kintaro went up into the mountains as usual with the bear, the deer, the monkey and the hare. After a long walk up hill and down dale over rough tracks, they came out onto a wide grassy plain full of pretty wildflowers. Here was the perfect place for a game. The deer rubbed his horns against a tree, the monkey scratched his back, the hare smoothed his long ears and the bear grunted happily.

“This is a fine spot for a game,” said Kintaro. “What do you all say to a wrestling match?”

The bear, being the biggest and oldest, answered for everyone. “That will be great fun. I’m the strongest, so I’ll build the ring.” And she set to work digging up earth and patting it into shape.

“All right,” said Kintaro. “I’ll watch while you wrestle one another, and I’ll give a prize to the winner of each round.”

“What fun! We’ll all try for the prize,” said the bear. The deer, the monkey and the hare helped her raise the platform, and when it was done Kintaro called out, “Now begin! The monkey and the hare will wrestle first, and Mr. Deer shall be the umpire.”

“He, he! I’ll be umpire,” said the deer. “Mr. Monkey, Mr. Hare, if you’re ready, please step into the ring.” The two hopped nimbly onto the platform, and the deer stood between them. “Red-back! Red-back! Are you ready?” he called to the monkey, using a nickname for this monkey’s red back. Then to the hare, “Long-ears! Long-ears! Are you ready?” The two little wrestlers faced each other while the deer held a leaf high in the air as a signal. When he dropped it, they rushed at each other, shouting, “Yoisho, yoisho!”

As they struggled, the deer shouted encouragement and warnings whenever one of them was pushed near the edge. “Red-back! Stand your ground!” he cried. “Long-ears! Be strong, be strong, don’t let the monkey beat you!” grunted the bear. Cheered on by their friends, both tried their very hardest. At last the hare got the better of it. The monkey seemed to trip, and the hare gave him a good shove that sent him flying off the platform.

The poor monkey sat up rubbing his back, his face very long. “Oh, oh! My back hurts! My back hurts!” he screamed angrily. Holding his leaf up high, the deer announced, “This round is over. The hare has won.” Kintaro opened his lunch box, took out a rice dumpling and gave it to the hare. “Here is your prize. You earned it well!”

The monkey got up looking very cross. As they say in Japan, “his stomach stood up,” for he felt he had not been fairly beaten. “That wasn’t fair,” he told Kintaro and the others. “My foot slipped and I fell. Please give me another chance.”

Kintaro agreed, and the two began again. This time the monkey was determined to win and thought of a cunning move. He decided the surest way was to grab the hare’s long ear, and he soon managed it. The pain of having his ear pulled so hard threw the hare completely off guard, and the monkey seized his chance, caught one of the hare’s legs and sent him sprawling in the middle of the ring. Now the monkey was the winner, and he was so pleased with his rice dumpling that he forgot all about his sore back.

Then the deer asked the hare whether he felt like another round with him, and the hare agreed. This time the bear was umpire. A deer with long horns against a hare with long ears must have been a funny sight! Suddenly the deer went down on one knee, and the bear raised the leaf and declared him beaten. So, with first one winning and then another, the little party played until they were tired out.

At last Kintaro stood up. “That’s enough for today. What a good place we’ve found for wrestling. Let’s come back tomorrow. Now let’s all go home. Come along!” And he led the way with the animals trailing behind.

After a while they came to a river running through a valley. There was no bridge, and the water rushed past, don, don. The animals looked worried, wondering how they would ever get across and home that evening. “Wait a moment,” said Kintaro. “I’ll make you a good bridge in a few minutes.”

The four animals watched to see what he would do. Kintaro went from tree to tree along the bank and finally stopped in front of a very large one growing at the water’s edge. He gripped the trunk and pulled with all his might, once, twice, three times. At the third pull his strength was too much for it; the roots gave way and, meri, meri, crash, crash, over went the tree, lying right across the stream like a perfect bridge. “There,” said Kintaro. “What do you think of my bridge? It’s quite safe, so follow me.” He crossed first and the animals followed. They had never seen anyone so strong, and they all cried, “How strong he is! How strong he is!”

Now, a woodcutter happened to be standing on a rock above the river and had seen everything. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t dreaming when he saw a boy pull a tree up by its roots and throw it over the stream. “This is no ordinary child,” said the man, who looked like a woodcutter from his clothes. “Whose son can he be? I’ll find out before the day is over.” He hurried after the strange party and crossed the bridge behind them. Kintaro had no idea he was being followed. On the far bank the animals went off to their dens in the woods, and he went home to his mother, who was waiting for him.

The cottage stood like a matchbox in the heart of the pine woods. “Okkasan, Mother, I’m home!” called Kintaro.

“Oh, Kimbo!” said his mother, smiling brightly, glad to see him safe after his long day. “You’re late. I was afraid something had happened to you. Where have you been?”

“I took my four friends up into the hills and had them wrestle to see which was strongest. We all had a lovely time, and we’re going back tomorrow for another match.”

“And who is the strongest of all?” asked his mother, pretending not to know.

“Oh, Mother, don’t you know I’m the strongest? I didn’t need to wrestle any of them.”

“But after you, who is strongest?”

“The bear comes next.”

“And after the bear?”

“After the bear it’s hard to say. The deer, the monkey and the hare all seem just as strong as each other.”

Suddenly a voice outside startled them. “Listen to me, little boy! Next time, take this old man with you to the wrestling. He’d like to join in too!” It was the woodcutter who had followed Kintaro from the river. He slipped off his clogs and came into the cottage. Yama-uba and her son stared in surprise at the stranger.

“Who are you?” they both asked.

The woodcutter laughed. “Never mind who I am just yet. Let’s see who has the stronger arm, this boy or I.”

Kintaro answered the unexpected visitor directly, “We’ll try if you like, but you mustn’t be angry whoever loses.” They each held out their right arm and gripped hands, and for a long time they strained, each trying to bend the other’s arm down. But the old man was very strong, and they were evenly matched. At last he stopped and called it a draw.

“You are indeed a very strong child,” he said. “Few men can match the strength of my right arm. I saw you by the river a few hours ago pull up that big tree to bridge the torrent, and I could hardly believe it, so I followed you home. Now I’ve felt your arm, I know what I saw was true. When you are grown, you will surely be the strongest man in Japan. It’s a pity you are hidden away in these wild mountains.” Then he turned to the boy’s mother. “Have you never thought of taking your son to the capital and teaching him to wear a sword, as a samurai should?”

“You are kind to take such an interest in him,” she answered, “but as you see, he is wild and untaught, and I fear it would be very hard. Because he was so strong as a baby, I hid him away in this unknown corner of the country, for he hurt everyone who came near him. I have often wished I could one day see my boy a knight wearing two swords, but we have no powerful friend to introduce us at the capital, so I fear my hope will never come true.”

“You needn’t worry about that. To tell the truth, I am no woodcutter. I am one of the great generals of Japan. My name is Sadamitsu, and I serve the mighty Lord Minamoto-no-Raiko. He sent me through the country to look for boys of remarkable strength who could be trained as soldiers for his army, and I thought a woodcutter’s disguise would be the best way to do it. By good luck I have found your son. If you truly want him to become a samurai, I will take him and present him to Lord Raiko for his service. What do you say?”

As the kind general explained his plan, the mother’s heart filled with joy. Here was a wonderful chance for the one wish of her life to come true: to see Kintaro a samurai before she died. Bowing her head to the floor, she said, “Then I will trust my son to you, if you really mean what you say.”

Kintaro had been sitting beside his mother listening to everything. When she finished, he cried, “Oh, joy, joy! I’m going with the general, and one day I’ll be a samurai!”

So Kintaro’s future was settled, and the general decided to set out for the capital at once, taking the boy with him. Yama-uba was sad to part with her son, for he was all she had left, but she tried not to show her sadness as he prepared to leave. She knew it was for his good and that she must not discourage him just as he set out. Kintaro promised never to forget her, and said that as soon as he was a knight with two swords he would build her a house and look after her in her old age.

When his animal friends, the bear, the deer, the monkey and the hare, found out that he was leaving, they came to ask if they might go with him as usual. When they learned he was going away for good, they followed him to the foot of the mountain to see him off. “Kimbo,” said his mother, “mind you are a good boy.” “Mr. Kintaro,” said the faithful animals, “we wish you good health on your travels.” Then they all climbed a tree to watch him go, and from up there they saw him and his shadow grow smaller and smaller until he disappeared.

General Sadamitsu went on his way delighted to have found such a wonder of a boy. As soon as they arrived, he took Kintaro to Lord Raiko and told him the whole story. Lord Raiko was delighted, sent for the boy and made him one of his followers on the spot.

Lord Raiko’s army was famous for a band called the Four Braves, warriors he had chosen himself from the bravest and strongest of his soldiers, known throughout Japan for their fearless courage. When Kintaro grew to be a man, his master made him chief of the Four Braves, for he was by far the strongest of them all. Soon afterward, news reached the city that a man-eating monster had made its home nearby and that people were terrified. Lord Raiko sent Kintaro to deal with it, and he set off straight away, eager to try his sword. He caught the monster by surprise in its den, quickly struck off its great head and carried it back in triumph to his lord.

Kintaro became the greatest hero in the land, and great power, honor and wealth came to him. He kept his promise and built a comfortable home for his old mother, who lived happily with him in the capital for the rest of her days.

Where this story comes from

“The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy” is the sixth tale in Yei Theodora Ozaki’s Japanese Fairy Tales. Ozaki makes Kintaro the son of a disgraced Kyoto soldier, raised in the Ashigara Mountains by a mother the woodcutters call Yama-uba, the Old Nurse of the Mountains, and she ends with him as chief of Lord Minamoto-no-Raiko’s Four Braves.

Most of her telling is the animal wrestling match, complete with the deer as umpire calling “Red-back!” and “Long-ears!” and the monkey who complains that he was not fairly beaten. She closes by asking her readers whether this is not the story of a great hero.

Read the original: Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: older children comfortable with fantasy fighting. Animal play includes painful ear-pulling, and the final adventure ends with a monster being beheaded.

From strength as a prize to strength as help

Kintaro does not enter the animals’ wrestling contest. He already knows he is stronger, and their changing winners make simple rankings unreliable. The tree bridge gives his strength a different purpose: all his friends need to get home. That practical act, not a wrestling victory, brings him to Sadamitsu’s attention.

The monkey’s ear-pulling wins a dumpling but hurts his opponent. Winning and playing fairly are therefore different questions, even if the umpire awards the round. Write three rules the animals could agree on before the next match. Then compare the bridge and the home Kintaro later builds for his mother: whom does each feat serve?

Questions to ask

• How did the monkey win the second wrestling round?
• Why did General Sadamitsu dress up as a woodcutter?
• What promise did Kintaro make to his mother, and did he keep it?

Related stories

• Momotaro, or the Story of the Son of a Peach — another Japanese boy hero with animal companions
• The Ogre of Rashomon — one of Lord Raiko’s warriors faces an ogre
• My Lord Bag of Rice — a strong warrior and a monster in the mountains