Are you ready to escape into story time? Listen to a classic The Moon Maiden fairy tale (not a Disney version). Check out our other classic fairy tale video stories on EscapeIntoStoryTime!
THE MOON-MAIDEN
A Japanese Fairy Tale
There dwelt once on the edge of the forest at the foot of
Fujiyama, a bamboo-cutter and his wife. They were honest, indus-
trious people who loved each other dearly, but no children had
come to bless them, and therefore they were not happy.
“Ah husband,” mourned the wife, “more welcome to me than
cherry blossoms in springtime would be a little child of my own.”
One evening she stood on the porch of her flimsy bamboo
cottage and lifted her eyes toward the everlasting snows on the
top of Fujiyama. Then, with swelling breast, she bowed herself
to the ground and cried out to the Honorable Mountain:
“Fuji no yama, I am sad because no little head lies on my
breast, no childish laughter gladdens our home. Send me, I
pray thee, from thine eternal purity, a little one to comfort me.”
As she spoke, lo! from the top of the Honorable Mountain
there suddenly sparkled a gleam of light as when the face of a
child is lit by a beaming smile.
“Husband, husband, come quickly,*’ cried the good woman.
“See there on the heights of Fujiyama a child is beaming upon me.”
“It is but your fancy,*’ said the bamboo-cutter and yet he
added, “I will climb up and see what is there.”
So he followed the trail of silvery light through the forest,
and up the steep slope where Fujiyama towered white and still
above him. At last he stopped below a tall bamboo by the bank
of a mountain stream, from whence the glow seemed to come.
There, cradled in the branches of the tree, he found a tiny moon-
child, fragile, dainty, radiant, clad in flimsy, filmy moon-shine,
more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before.
“Ah, little shining creature, who are you?” he cried.
“I am the Princess Moonbeam,” answered the child. “The
Moon Lady is my mother, but she has sent me to earth to comfort
the sad heart of your wife.”
“Then, little Princess,” said the Woodman eagerly, “I will
take you home to be our child.”
So the woodman bore her carefully down the mountain side.
“See, wife,” he called, “what the Moon Lady has sent you.”
Then was the good woman overjoyed. She took the little
moon-child and held her close, and the moon-child’s little arms
went twining about her neck, as she nestled snug against her
breast. So was the good wife’s longing satisfied at last.
As the years passed by. Princess Moonbeam brought nothing
but joy to the woodman and his wife. Lovelier and lovelier she
grew. Fair was her face and radiant, her eyes were shining stars,
and her hair had the gleam of a misty silver halo. About her,
too, there was a strange, imearthly charm that made all who saw
her love her.
One day there came riding by in state the Mikado himself.
He saw how the Princess Moonbeam lit up the humble cottage,
and he loved her. Then the Mikado would have taken her
back with him to court, but no! — the longing of the earthly
father and mother for a little child had been fulfilled, the Princess
Moonbeam had stayed with them till she was a maiden grown,
and now the time had come when she must go back to her sky
mother, the Lady in the Moon.
“Stay, stay with me on earth!” cried the Mikado.
“Stay, stay with us on earth!” cried the bamboo-cutter and
his wife. Then the Mikado got two thousand archers and set
them on guard close about the house and even on the roof, that
none might get through to take her. But when the moon rose
white and full, a line of light like a silver bridge sprung arching
down from heaven to earth and floating along that gleaming path
came the Lady from the Moon. The Mikadoes soldiers stood as
though turned to stone. Straight through their midst the Moon
Lady passed and bent caressingly down for her long-absent child.
She wrapped her close in a garment of silver mist. Then she
caught her tenderly in her arms, and led her gently back to the
sky. The Princess Moonbeam was glad to go back home, yet
as she went, she wept silvery tears for those she was leaving
behind. And lo! her bright, shining tears took wings and floated
away to carry a message of love, that should comfort the Mikado,
and her earthly father and mother.
To this very day the gleaming tears of the little Princess
Moonbeam are seen to float hither and yon about the marshes
and groves of Japan. The children chase them with happy cries
and say, “See the fire-flies! How beautiful they are!” Then their
mothers, in the shadow of Fujiyama, tell the children this legend —
how the fire-flies are shining love messages of the little Princess
Moonbeam, flitting down to bring comfort to earth from her
far-off home in the silver moon.
