James Baquet

This charming Japanese story has been set in various cultures worldwide.

Miho no Matsubara is a scenic area in what is now the modern Japanese city of Shizuoka. Seven kilometers long, it’s a narrow, pine-planted strip with the ocean to the east and a magnificent view of Mount Fuji across a bay to the west.

This magical setting gave rise to the story sometimes called “Hagoromo,” or “The Feathered Robe.”

Once a poor fisherman spent all night at sea in his boat, casting his net here and there, but in the end had nothing to show for it.

By the cold light of dawn he pulled his boat ashore at Miho and, as he shivered, suddenly felt a warm wind ruffling his clothes and hair, fragrant with the scent of a hundred types of flowers.

Then actual flowers began to rain down, and the air was filled with sweet music. The fisherman wondered if he wasn’t in Miho after all. Perhaps he had sailed to a mystical land — or perhaps he was dead! But sighting Mount Fuji, he knew he must be home.

As he looked around, he saw a robe made of feathers hanging on a branch of one of Miho’s 30,000 (some say 54,000) pine trees.

The robe was made up of the feathers of every kind of bird that could fly, from hummingbirds to swans to eagles.

The fisherman lifted the robe from the branch, intending to take it home. But as he left, he was accosted by a “tennin,” a heavenly creature not unlike an angel or a fairy. “Give me my feather robe,” she demanded, holding out her hand.

“Why should I?” asked the fisherman. “Finders keepers!”

So she explained that she was a Moon Fairy, and couldn’t return home without her robe. She would die far from home, all because — “All right!” said the fisherman. “I get it! But first you must dance for me.”

So she swept her feet through the yellow sand as she sang of the gold and silver mountains of the moon, and the sweet singing birds of Heaven. At last, she rose to heaven, and the fisherman, contented, saw her no more.

After gazing long after her, he looked down and found a single gray feather in the sand. He smoothed it with his finger and hid it in his belt, then made his way home.

Vocabulary:

Which word above means:

1. disturbing, rumpling

2. supernatural, spiritual

3. looking intently

4. confronted, approached aggressively

5. a smell

6. shook with cold

7. the first light of day

8. sweet-smelling

9. satisfied, at peace

10. onto land