A long, long time ago, a miserly man worked in a coalmine in the mountains every day. As he had reached a good age for marriage, his neighbors encouraged him to take a wife. The man replied, "Marriage is all very well, but I want a wife who will work hard for her living and eat nothing." That very night, there was a knock on the man's door. "I will be your wife. I will work hard, and eat nothing, so please marry me," a voice said. The voice belonged to a beautiful young woman, and the man happily invited her into his house. "If that is the case, you will be my bride.
The young woman would work from early in the morning until late at night and when the man came home from the coalmine in the evening, he found his dinner prepared for him. "She's the best wife a man could find," he would say and the word spread throughout the village. "His wife doesn't eat, she just works hard every day. She's the best wife a man could find." The young men of the village came looking for her. "Where is she, this wife who doesn't eat?"
One day, one such curious young man peered into the house to find the wife cooking rice in a five *sho saucepan. "That's strange," he thought and peering into the house once more, he noticed that many **onigiri were lined up on the lid of the saucepan. The young man was wondering what the wife was going to do with all that food when she turned towards him with the face of a snake. He was so surprised that he fled and told the miserly man, "While you go to the mine every day, your wife eats. You should pretend to go to work and instead spy on her from the roof space." "Don't be silly," the miserly man replied. "My wife doesn't eat anything."
But the next day, the miserly man pretended to go to the mountains and peered down from the roof space to see his wife cooking rice in a large saucepan. "Oh, it's true," he said, as he watched his wife make several onigiri, and place them on top of the saucepan lid. Then she let down her hair and a large mouth appeared in the middle of her head. "Eat this, Taro. Eat this, Jiro. And hurry, before my husband comes home," she said, placing one onigiri after another into the mouth in the middle of her head.
Her husband was surprised and came down from the roof space, entering the house through the door. "Oh, I came home because I'd forgotten something," he said. "By the way, it is the May festival, so I must visit my parents' home." The miserly man led his bride to the riverbank where there were irises and a field of wormwood. Entering this field, the wife transformed into a snake and after squirming around for a while, she disappeared… never to be seen again.
That is why, to avoid giving birth to a snake, people decorate the eaves of their houses with bunches of irises and wormwood and bathe in hot wormwood baths during the May festival.
But this is also a tale of caution. The miserly man who wanted a wife who "eats nothing and works hard," really brought this on himself.
*sho=1.8 liters
**onigiri= riceball |
