ox, so to repay your kindness I
killed my cub and took out its liver; then its sire, disguising
himself as a messenger, brought it to your house."

And as she spoke, the fox shed tears; and the master of the house,
wishing to thank her, moved in bed, upon which his wife awoke and
asked him what was the matter; but he too, to her great astonishment,
was biting the pillow and weeping bitterly.

"Why are you weeping thus?" asked she.

At last he sat up in bed, and said, "Last spring, when I was out on a
pleasure excursion, I was the means of saving the life of a fox's cub,
as I told you at the time. The other day I told Mr. So-and-so that,
although my son were to die before my eyes, I would not be the means
of killing a fox on purpose; but asked him, in case he heard of any
hunter killing a fox, to buy it for me. How the foxes came to hear of
this I don't know; but the foxes to whom I had shown kindness killed
their own cub and took out the liver; and the old dog-fox, disguising
himself as a messenger from the person to whom we had confided the
commission, came here with it. His mate has just been at my
pillow-side and told me all about it; hence it was that, in spite of
myself, I was moved to tears."

[Illustration: THE FEAST OF INARI SAMA.]

When she heard this, the goodwife likewise was blinded by her tears,
and for a while they lay lost in thought; but at last, coming to
themselves, they lighted the lamp on the shelf on which the family
idol stood, and spent the night in reciting prayers and praises, and
the next day they published the matter to the household and to their
relations and friends. Now, although there are instances of men
killing their own children to requite a favour, there is no other
example of foxes having done such a thing; so the story became the
talk of the whole country.

Now, the boy who had recovered through the efficacy of this medicine
selected the prettiest spot on the premises to erect a shrine to Inari
Sama,[79] the Fox God, and offered sacrifice to the two old foxes, for
whom he purchased the highest rank at the court of the Mikado.

[Footnote 79: Inari Sama is the title under which was deified a
certain mythical personage, called Uga, to whom tradition attributes
the honour of having first discovered and cultivated the rice-plant.
He is represented carrying a few ears of rice, and is symbolized by a
snake guarding a bale of rice grain. The foxes wait upon him, and do
his bidding