FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   >>  
ach, Urashima went up to them and said: "Can you tell me please where Urashima's cottage, that used to stand here, has been moved to?"--"Urashima?" said they; "why! it was four hundred years ago that he was drowned out fishing. His parents, and his brothers, and their grandchildren are all dead long ago. It is an old, old story. How can you be so foolish as to ask after his cottage? It fell to pieces hundreds of years ago." Then it suddenly flashed across Urashima's mind that the Sea-God's Palace beyond the waves, with its coral walls and its ruby fruits and its dragons with tails of solid gold, must be part of fairy-land, and that one day there was probably as long as a year in this world, so that his three years in the Sea-God's Palace had really been hundreds of years. Of course there was no use in staying at home, now that all his friends were dead and buried, and even the village had passed away. So Urashima was in a great hurry to get back to his wife, the Dragon Princess beyond the sea. But which was the way? He couldn't find it with no one to show it to him. "Perhaps," thought he, "if I open the box which she gave me, I shall be able to find the way." So he disobeyed her orders not to open the box,--or perhaps he forgot them, foolish boy that he was. Anyhow he opened the box; and what do you think came out of it? Nothing but a white cloud which floated away over the sea. Urashima shouted to the cloud to stop, rushed about and screamed with sorrow; for he remembered now what his wife had told him, and how, after opening the box, he should never be able to go to the Sea-God's Palace again. But soon he could neither run nor shout any more. Suddenly his hair grew as white as snow, his face got wrinkled, and his back bent like that of a very old man. Then his breath stopped short, and he fell down dead on the beach. Poor Urashima! He died because he had been foolish and disobedient. If only he had done as he was told, he might have lived another thousand years. Wouldn't you like to go and see the Dragon Palace beyond the waves, where the Sea-God lives and rules as King over the Dragons and the tortoises and the fishes, where the trees have emeralds for leaves and rubies for berries, where the fishes' tails are of silver and the dragons' tails all of solid gold? _Printed by the Kobunsha in Tokyo, Japan._ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fisher-Boy Urashima, by Anonymous *** END OF THIS P
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   >>  



Top keywords:

Urashima

 

Palace

 
foolish
 

dragons

 

Dragon

 

cottage

 

fishes

 

hundreds

 

Suddenly

 
remembered

opening

 

floated

 
sorrow
 

screamed

 

shouted

 
rushed
 

Printed

 

silver

 

Kobunsha

 

berries


rubies

 
tortoises
 

emeralds

 

leaves

 

Project

 
Anonymous
 

Gutenberg

 
Fisher
 

Dragons

 
stopped

breath
 

disobedient

 

Wouldn

 
thousand
 

wrinkled

 

Princess

 
pieces
 

suddenly

 

flashed

 
fruits

grandchildren

 

fishing

 
parents
 

brothers

 

drowned

 

hundred

 
disobeyed
 
orders
 

Perhaps

 
thought