Defeat of the Mountain Spirit by the youth and Schippietaro, by J. H. Ford (1901)
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The next story to come in Lang's collection of retellings is Schippietaro, which is about a boy who leaves his village upon reaching manhood and vows not to return until he has made himself famous. The tale says that this was once the tradition for young men in Japanese villages: to go out and seek glory for himself and his family. I don't find that hard to believe, but it is presented in the story as such a sweeping fact that I think it might be making a generalization. Anyway, he spots a mountain and aims to start his journey there, not knowing what would transpire after he goes down to rest from his trek. He finds that he has to stop to sleep for the night in the forest on the mountain, and rather than sleep in the danger of the trees, he spots a chapel in a clearing and makes his camp there. In the middle of the night he is awoken by the forms and shrieks of cats, who say, "Don't tell Schippietaro! Keep it hidden and secret! Don't tell Schippietaro!" When morning comes, the young man discovers a village when he resumes his trek. In this village, he discovers that each year, the people must sacrifice a young woman to the mountain spirit to be eaten and the girl for this year has already been chosen for the beast tonight. He is told that this maiden was strapped inside of a coffin in front of the chapel, so he makes it his duty to investigate. But before he leaves, he asks the people: "Who is Schippietaro?" They tell him he is the dog owned by the overseer of the village, who the young man convinces to let him borrow the dog to rescue the woman. The two investigate the chapel and face the Mountain Spirit, which is a huge black cat. Together they killed the mountain spirit and were forever considered heroes to the village.
The next story is the Wicked Tanuki, which is a small badger-like animal that lives in Japan. There was a forest that had been purged of all but three animals: a tanuki, a fox his wife, and their son. But they hadn't escaped the purge on accident: they were all very clever and skilled in magic. As they begin to worry about starvation, the tanuki proposes that his wife, disguised as a human, takes him into the village to sell for some money so that they can buy food. The husband and wife agree on this. After the fox had gotten the most money she could from the bidders, her husband was locked away, but quickly escaped his holding back into the forest. Eventually they needed more food, and this time the fox would be the one being sold. But this time, the tanuki thought that if he had the buyer kill her, there would be more food for him and his son. So she is betrayed and killed. However, the tanuki does not give his son any food, and the son by this time had found out everything and planned a way to get vengance. He proposed to his father a wager: that no matter what shape his father could take, he could match it with magic as well. The father agreed and waited at sunrise on the bridge into the town. However, the young tanuki allowed the town's king and escorts to pass on the bridge first, so that his father would be tricked. Indeed he had: the guards, thinking their king was being attacked through the old tanuki into the river, where he drowned.
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