The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fisher-Boy Urashima, by Anonymous

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Title: The Fisher-Boy Urashima

Author: Anonymous

Translator: B. H. Chamberlain

Release Date: September 18, 2009 [EBook #30024]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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JAPANESE FAIRY TALES, No. 8.

THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA

BY B. H. CHAMBERLAIN

GRIFFITH FARRAN & CO., LONDON & SYDNEY, N.S.W.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

#THE FISHER-BOY URASHIMA.#

Long, long ago there lived on the coast of the sea of Japan a young
fisherman named Urashima, a kindly lad and clever with his rod and
line.

Well, one day he went out in his boat to fish. But instead of catching
any fish, what do you think he caught? Why! a great big tortoise, with
a hard shell and such a funny wrinkled old face and a tiny tail. Now I
must tell you something which very likely you don't know; and that is
that tortoises always live a thousand years,--at least Japanese
tortoises do. So Urashima thought to himself: "A fish would do for my
dinner just as well as this tortoise,--in fact better. Why should I go
and kill the poor thing, and prevent it from enjoying itself for another
nine hundred and ninety-nine years? No, no! I won't be so cruel. I am
sure mother wouldn't like me to." And with these words, he threw the
tortoise back into the sea.

The next thing that happened was that Urashima went to sleep in his
boat; for it was one of those hot summer days when almost everybody
enjoys a nap of an afternoon. And as he slept, there came up from
beneath the waves a beautiful girl, who got into the boat and said: "I
am the daughter of the Sea-God, and I live with my father in the Dragon
Palace beyond the waves. It was not a tortoise that you