The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child

Long ago there lived an old bamboo-cutter who was poor and sad, for Heaven had never sent him a child to brighten his old age, and he saw nothing ahead but work until the day he was laid in his grave. Every morning he went into the woods and hills where the bamboo lifted its slender green plumes against the sky. He would choose his stems, cut them down, split them or saw them into lengths, and carry them home to make into household things, which he and his old wife sold for a meager living.

One morning he was cutting in a fine clump of bamboo when the whole green grove was suddenly filled with a soft bright light, as though the full moon had risen over it. Looking round in amazement, he saw that the glow came from one single bamboo. He dropped his ax and went closer. The light was pouring from a hollow in the stem, and in the middle of it stood a tiny, exquisitely beautiful person only three inches tall.

“You must be meant to be my child, since I find you here among the bamboos where I work every day,” said the old man. He carried the little creature home in his hand for his wife to raise. The tiny girl was so lovely and so small that the old woman kept her in a basket so that nothing could possibly hurt her. The old couple were overjoyed. All their lives they had grieved at having no children, and now they poured all the love of their old age onto the child who had come to them so wonderfully.

From then on the old man often found gold in the joints of the bamboos he cut, and precious stones as well, so that little by little he grew rich. He built himself a fine house and was no longer known as the poor bamboo-cutter but as a wealthy man.

In just three months, amazingly, the bamboo child grew into a full-grown girl. Her foster-parents put up her hair and dressed her in beautiful kimonos, and because she was so wonderfully lovely they kept her behind screens like a princess, let no one see her, and waited on her themselves. She seemed to be made of light; the whole house glowed softly, so that even the dark of night was like day. Whenever the old man felt sad he had only to look at her, and his sorrow disappeared and he felt as happy as a young man.

When the time came to name her, they called in a famous name-giver, who named her Princess Moonlight, because she shone so softly and brightly that she might have been the daughter of the Moon God. The naming was celebrated for three days with music, singing and dancing, and all the old couple’s friends and relations came. Everyone who saw her said there had never been anyone so beautiful; every beauty in the land would look pale beside her. Her fame spread far and wide, and suitors flocked to win her hand, or even to catch a glimpse of her.

They camped outside the house and made little holes in the fence, hoping to see her as she passed along the veranda. They stayed there day and night, giving up even their sleep, but all for nothing. They tried to speak to the old man and his wife or the servants, but even that was refused. Most of them finally gave up and went home. But five knights only grew more determined. They went without proper meals, eating whatever scraps were brought to them, so that they need never leave the house, and they stood there in all weathers, sun and rain alike. They wrote letters to the Princess and received no answer. They wrote poems about the hopeless love that kept them from food, rest and home, and still she gave no sign.

So the winter passed. Frost and cold winds gave way to the warmth of spring, then the summer sun blazed down, and still the faithful knights kept watch. At last they called to the bamboo-cutter and begged him to have mercy and let them see the Princess, but he answered that since he was not her real father he could not make her obey him against her will. The knights went home and prayed before their household shrines with rosaries in their hands, burning precious incense and asking Buddha to grant their heart’s desire. But they could not rest at home, and after a few days they were back at the bamboo-cutter’s gate.

This time the old man came out to them. They begged him to tell them whether the Princess meant never to see any man at all, and to plead with her for them: to tell her how great their love was and how long they had waited, sleepless and without shelter, through winter cold and summer heat, and that they would count it all a pleasure if she would only give them one chance to speak for themselves.

The old man listened kindly. In his heart he felt sorry for them and would have liked to see his foster-daughter married to one of them. So he went to Princess Moonlight and said respectfully, “Though you have always seemed a heavenly being to me, I have taken the trouble of raising you as my own child, and you have been glad of the shelter of my roof. Will you refuse to do as I wish?”

The Princess answered that there was nothing she would not do for him; she loved and honored him as her own father, and she could not remember any time before she came to earth. Delighted, the old man told her how much he wanted to see her safely married before he died. “I am over seventy, and my end could come at any time. It is right that you should meet these five suitors and choose one of them.”

“Oh, why must I?” she said unhappily. “I don’t want to marry now.”

“I found you many years ago, a little thing three inches high, in a great white light that led me to the bamboo where you were hidden. So I have always believed you were more than a mortal woman. While I live, you may stay as you are if you wish. But one day I will be gone, and who will take care of you then? So I beg you to meet these five brave men one by one and make up your mind to marry one of them.”

The Princess replied that she was surely not as beautiful as people said, and that whoever married her without really knowing her might change his mind afterward. Since she could not be sure of them, even though her father called them worthy knights, she did not think it wise to see them.

“That is all very sensible,” said the old man, “but what sort of men will you see, then? I don’t call these five fickle. They have stood outside this house all winter and all summer, going without food and sleep to win you. What more can you ask?”

Then Princess Moonlight said she must test their love further before she would meet them. Each of the five must prove himself by bringing her, from some distant country, a thing she wished to have.

That evening the suitors came and took turns playing their flutes and singing songs they had made about their tireless love. The bamboo-cutter went out, told them how sorry he was for all they had suffered, and gave them her message: she would marry whichever of them brought her what she wanted. The five agreed, thinking it a fine plan that would stop any jealousy among them.

The Princess sent word to the First Knight to bring her the stone bowl that had belonged to Buddha in India. The Second Knight was to go to the Mountain of Horai, said to lie in the Eastern Sea, and bring her a branch of the wonderful tree on its summit, whose roots were silver, whose trunk was gold, and whose fruit was white jewels. The Third Knight was to go to China, find the fire-rat and bring her its skin. The Fourth Knight was to find the dragon that carried on its head a stone shining with five colors and bring her the stone. The Fifth Knight was to find the swallow that carried a shell in its stomach and bring her the shell.

The old man thought these tasks far too hard and hesitated to deliver them, but the Princess would set no other conditions. When the five heard what was asked of them, they were disheartened and disgusted at what seemed impossible, and they went home in despair. But after a while, thinking of the Princess, their love came back, and they decided to try.

The First Knight sent word that he was setting out that very day for Buddha’s bowl. But he lacked the courage to travel all the way to India, for journeys in those days were hard and dangerous. Instead he went to a temple in Kyoto, paid the priest a large sum for a stone bowl from the altar, wrapped it in cloth of gold, waited quietly for three years and then brought it to the old man. The Princess was surprised he had come back so soon. She unwrapped the bowl, expecting it to fill the room with light, but it did not shine at all, so she knew it was a fake. She sent it back at once and refused to see him. The knight threw the bowl away and went home in despair, giving up all hope of winning her.

The Second Knight told his parents he needed a change of air for his health, being too ashamed to admit that love was the real reason he was leaving. He sent word to the Princess that he was off to Mount Horai, let his servants come only halfway, and sent them home. At the coast he boarded a small ship, and after three days’ sailing he landed, hired carpenters to build him a house that no one could get into, and shut himself up inside with six skilled jewelers to make a gold and silver branch that he hoped would pass for one from the tree on Mount Horai. Everyone he asked had told him that Mount Horai belonged to fable, not to fact.

When the branch was finished, he travelled home, did his best to look worn out by a long voyage, put the jeweled branch in a lacquer box and carried it to the bamboo-cutter. The old man was completely taken in by the knight’s travel-stained looks and urged the Princess to see him. She sat silent and sad. The old man took out the branch and praised it as a treasure that could be found nowhere else, and praised the knight too, so handsome and so brave to have gone so far. Princess Moonlight examined the branch carefully and said that no one could have got a branch from the tree on Mount Horai so quickly or so easily; she was sorry, but she believed it was artificial.

The old man went out to the knight, who had come up to the house, and asked where he had found it. The knight did not hesitate to make up a long story. Two years ago, he said, he had sailed in search of Mount Horai. A great storm in the far Eastern Sea had tossed him about for days until he lost all sense of direction and was blown ashore on an unknown island full of demons, who at first threatened to kill and eat him; but he had made friends with them, and they had helped him mend his boat. His food ran out and his crew fell sick. At last, on the five-hundredth day, he saw a mountain peak far off on the horizon. It was an island with a tall mountain in the middle. After two or three days of wandering there, he met a shining being on the beach holding a golden bowl, who told him, “Yes, this is Mount Horai!” With great difficulty he climbed to the summit, where the golden tree grew with its silver roots in the ground. The wonders of that land were endless, he said, but as soon as he had broken off the branch he had hurried back, and even at top speed the voyage had taken four hundred days. “As you can see, my clothes are still damp from the sea. I didn’t even stop to change, I was so eager to bring the branch to the Princess.”

At that very moment the six jewelers, who had never been paid, arrived at the house and sent in a petition to the Princess. They had worked more than a thousand days, they said, on the golden branch with its silver twigs and jeweled fruit that the knight had presented to her, and they had received nothing for it. So his trick was discovered. The Princess, glad to be rid of one more troublesome suitor, gladly sent the branch back. She called in the workmen and paid them generously, and they went away happy. But on the road home the furious knight caught up with them and beat them so badly that they barely escaped with their lives. Then he went home raging, gave up all hope of the Princess, left society and went to live alone in the mountains.

The Third Knight had a friend in China, so he wrote asking him to get the skin of the fire-rat, any part of which no fire could harm, and promised him as much money as he wanted. When he heard that his friend’s ship had come into port, he rode seven days on horseback to meet him, paid him a large sum and received the skin. At home he put it carefully in a box and sent it in to the Princess while he waited outside for her answer. The bamboo-cutter carried in the box and, as usual, coaxed her to see the knight at once, but she said she must first test the skin in the fire; if it were real, it would not burn. She took off its crape wrapping and threw it into the flames. The skin crackled and burned up at once. So the Third Knight failed too.

The Fourth Knight was no braver than the others. Instead of setting out after the dragon himself, he called all his servants together and ordered them to search for the jewel far and wide in Japan and China, and forbade any of them to come back without it. They went off in all directions with no intention of obeying such an impossible command. They simply took a holiday in pleasant country places and grumbled about their unreasonable master. The knight, meanwhile, was so sure they would find it that he fitted out his house beautifully to receive the Princess.

A whole year went by, and still his men did not return. At last the knight could wait no longer. Taking only two men, he hired a ship and ordered the captain to go in search of the dragon. The captain and sailors refused to set out on such a ridiculous hunt, but the knight forced them to put to sea. They had been out only a few days when they ran into a great storm that lasted so long that by the time it died down, the knight had made up his mind to give up the dragon. At last they were blown ashore. Worn out with travel and worry, he had caught a very bad cold and had to go to bed with a swollen face. The governor of the place heard of his plight and invited him to his house, and there, as he thought over all his troubles, the knight’s love turned to anger. He blamed the Princess for everything he had suffered and decided that she had probably wanted him dead and had sent him on an impossible quest to be rid of him. Just then all the servants he had sent out came to see him, and to their surprise he praised them instead of scolding them. He told them he was heartily sick of adventures and would never go near the Princess’s house again.

Like all the rest, the Fifth Knight failed in his quest. He could not find the swallow’s shell.

By now the fame of Princess Moonlight’s beauty had reached the Emperor. He sent a lady of the court to see whether she was really as lovely as people said; if she was, he would summon her to the palace as a lady-in-waiting. But when the court lady arrived, the Princess refused to see her, in spite of her father’s pleading. The messenger insisted that it was the Emperor’s command. Then Princess Moonlight told the old man that if she were forced to go to the palace, she would vanish from the earth.

When the Emperor heard this, he decided to see her for himself. He arranged a hunting trip near the bamboo-cutter’s house and sent word to the old man, who agreed. The next day the Emperor rode out, soon left his followers behind, found the house, dismounted and went straight in to where the Princess sat among her maidens. He had never seen anyone so wonderfully beautiful, glowing in her own soft light, and he could not take his eyes off her. When she realized a stranger was looking at her, she tried to slip out of the room, but the Emperor caught hold of her and begged her to listen. Her only answer was to hide her face in her sleeves.

The Emperor fell deeply in love. He begged her to come to court, where she would have a place of honor and everything she could want, and he was about to send for a royal palanquin to carry her away with him, saying that such grace and beauty belonged at court, not hidden in a bamboo-cutter’s cottage. But the Princess stopped him. If she were forced to go to the palace, she said, she would turn at once into a shadow, and even as she spoke her form began to fade before his eyes. The Emperor promised to leave her free if only she would take her shape again, and she did.

It was time for him to go, for his followers would be wondering what had become of him. He said goodbye and left with a heavy heart. To him Princess Moonlight was the most beautiful woman in the world; all others seemed dull beside her, and he thought of her day and night. He spent much of his time writing poems about his love and sending them to her, and though she would not see him again, she answered with verses of her own, telling him gently that she could never marry anyone on this earth. Her little poems always gave him pleasure.

About this time her foster-parents noticed that night after night the Princess sat on her balcony gazing at the moon for hours, deeply unhappy, and always ending in tears. One night the old man found her weeping as if her heart would break and begged her to tell him why. Crying, she told him he had been right to think she did not belong to this world. She had come from the moon, and her time on earth would soon be over. On the fifteenth day of that very month of August, her people from the moon would come to fetch her, and she would have to go. Her parents were there, but after a lifetime on earth she had forgotten them and the moon-world too. It made her weep, she said, to think of leaving her kind foster-parents and the home where she had been happy for so long. Her attendants were so grief-stricken at the news that they could neither eat nor drink.

As soon as the Emperor heard, he sent messengers to ask whether it was true. The old bamboo-cutter went out to meet them. These last sad days had aged him terribly, and he looked far older than his seventy years. Weeping, he told them it was only too true, but that he meant to take the moon-messengers prisoner and do everything in his power to stop the Princess from being carried off.

On the fifteenth day of the month the Emperor sent two thousand warriors, all skilled archers, to guard the house. A thousand took up positions on the roof, and a thousand watched every entrance. The bamboo-cutter and his wife hid the Princess in an inner room, and the old man ordered that no one in the house should sleep that night; everyone must keep watch and be ready to defend her. But the Princess told him that all this would be useless. When her people came, nothing could stop them, not even the Emperor’s soldiers. Then she added, weeping, that she was very sorry to leave him and his wife, whom she had come to love as her parents. If she could choose, she would stay with them in their old age and try to repay all the love and kindness they had shown her through her life on earth.

The night wore on. The yellow harvest moon rose high and flooded the sleeping world with golden light. Silence lay over the pine and bamboo forests and over the roof where the thousand soldiers waited. The sky began to turn gray toward dawn, and everyone hoped the danger had passed and the Princess would not have to leave after all. Then the watchers saw a cloud form around the moon and begin to roll toward the earth. Closer and closer it came, and to their dismay it was heading straight for the house. Soon it hid the whole sky and hung over the house only ten feet above the ground. In the middle of the cloud was a flying chariot full of shining beings. One of them, who looked like a king and seemed to be their leader, stepped out and, floating in the air, called the old man to come out.

“The time has come for Princess Moonlight to return to the moon she came from,” he said. “She committed a grave fault, and as a punishment she was sent to live down here for a while. We know how well you have cared for her, and we have rewarded you with wealth and good fortune. It was we who put the gold in the bamboos for you to find.”

“I have raised this Princess for twenty years, and never once has she done anything wrong,” said the old man. “So the lady you are looking for cannot be her. Please look somewhere else.”

Then the messenger called out, “Princess Moonlight, come out of this humble house. Do not stay here a moment longer.” At his words the screens of her room slid open by themselves, and there stood the Princess, glowing in her own light, bright and wonderful.

The messenger led her out and placed her in the chariot. She looked back and saw the old man’s terrible grief, and she spoke many comforting words to him. It was not by her own will that she was leaving, she told him, and he must always think of her when he looked at the moon. The bamboo-cutter begged to go with her, but that was not allowed. So she took off her embroidered outer robe and gave it to him to remember her by.

One of the moon-beings in the chariot held a wonderful robe of wings, and another a phial of the Elixir of Life, which they gave the Princess to drink. She swallowed a little and was about to give the rest to the old man, but they would not let her. They were about to put the robe of wings on her shoulders when she said, “Wait a little. I must not forget my good friend the Emperor. I must write to him once more to say goodbye while I still have this human form.” Though the messengers and charioteers grew impatient, she kept them waiting while she wrote. Then she put the phial of the Elixir with the letter and asked the old man to deliver them to the Emperor.

The chariot began to roll up toward the moon. As everyone gazed after the Princess through their tears, dawn broke, and in the rosy light of morning the moon-chariot and all who rode in it disappeared among the fleecy clouds that the morning wind was blowing across the sky.

Princess Moonlight’s letter was carried to the palace. The Emperor was afraid to touch the Elixir of Life, so he sent it, with the letter, to the top of Mount Fuji, the most sacred mountain in the land, and there at sunrise his messengers burned them on the summit. The tale ends by explaining the smoke once said to rise from Mount Fuji: it is the trace of those gifts burning on the summit.

Where this story comes from

“The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child” is the ninth tale in Yei Theodora Ozaki’s Japanese Fairy Tales. In her preface Ozaki identifies a classical literary source, naming it Taketari Monogatari in this edition’s spelling. She also records her own disagreement with how the work was classified. That is an account of her editorial choice, not a claim that all Japanese readers have one view of its genre.

Ozaki’s heroine is named Princess Moonlight because of the light that streams from her. The five impossible tasks, Buddha’s stone bowl, a branch from the jeweled tree of Mount Horai, the fire-rat’s skin, the dragon’s five-colored stone and the swallow’s shell, take up the middle of the tale, and the ending explains the smoke once said to rise from Mount Fuji.

Read the original: Japanese Fairy Tales (Project Gutenberg)

Reading guidance: older children with discussion. The story includes intrusive suitors, pressure to marry, workers being beaten, and a painful forced separation from family.

Who gets to choose Princess Moonlight’s future?

The princess says she does not want to marry, but the suitors treat their persistence as a claim on her attention. Her father worries about her future while also pressuring her. The impossible objects let her test the men without accepting their assumptions. The unpaid jewelers reveal that the splendid branch has a human cost, and her payment to them contrasts with the knight’s violent response.

Even the emperor eventually promises to leave her free. Yet the moon people give her no such choice: their power defeats the soldiers and separates her from the family she wants to stay with. Her brightness marks her as extraordinary without giving her control over where she belongs.

Make a list of the moments when she says or signals no. Who respects it, who argues with it, and who overrides it? Compare those responses before deciding whether the ending is chiefly about letting go or about losing the power to choose.

Talk about it

• How does Princess Moonlight find out that the bowl, the branch and the fire-rat skin are fakes?
• Why does the Emperor send two thousand archers, and why can’t they stop the moon people?
• Why do you think the Emperor would not drink the Elixir of Life?

Related stories

• The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die — another Japanese tale about the Elixir of Life and Mount Fuji
• The Lady of the Moon — a Chinese legend of a woman who rises to the moon
• The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad — love with a being from another world, and a hard parting