e, whose
name, you know, means 'many parents and children.' The name of the black
piece of charcoal is a pun on our homestead."

"But best of all," says Yoshi-san, "I like the seaweed hontawara, for it
tells me of our brave Queen Jingu Kogo, who, lest the troops should be
discouraged, concealed from the army that her husband the king had died,
put on armor, and led the great campaign against Korea.[6] Her troops,
stationed at the margin of the sea, were in danger of defeat on account
of the lack of fodder for their horses; when she ordered this hontawara
to be plucked from the shore, and the horses, freshened by their meal of
seaweed, rushed victoriously to battle. On the bronzed clasp of our
worthy father's tobacco-pouch is, our noble father says, the Queen with
her sword and the dear little baby prince,[7] Hachiman, who was born
after the campaign, and who is now our Warrior God,[8] guiding our
troops to victory, and that spirit on whose head squats a dragon has
risen partly from the deep, to present an offering to the Queen and the
Prince."

[6] _The campaign against Korea_: 200 A.D.

[7] _The Queen and the Prince_: See the story of "The Jewels of the
Ebbing and the Flowing Tide" in the book of "Japanese Fairy Tales" in
this series.

[8] Ojin, son of Jingu Kogo, was, much later, deified as the god of
war, Hachiman. See "The Religions of Japan," p. 204.

[Illustration: Presenting the Tide-jewels to Hachiman.]

"Then there is another seaweed, whose name is a pun on 'rejoicing.'
There is the lucky bag that I made, for last year, of a square piece of
paper into which we put chestnuts and the roe of a herring and dried
persimmon fruit. Then I tied up the paper with red and white
paper-string, that the sainted gods might know it was an offering."

[Illustration: "Bronze fishes sitting on their throats."]

Yoshi-san and his little sister had now reached the great gate
ornamented with huge bronze fishes[9] sitting on their throats and
twisting aloft their forked tails, that was near their home. He told his
sister she must wait to know more about the great festival till the time
arrived. They shuffled off their shoes, bowed, till their foreheads
touched the ground, to their parents, ate their evening bowl of rice and
salt fish, said a prayer and burnt a stick of incense to many-armed
Buddha at the family altar. They spread their cotton-wadded quilts,
rested their dear little shaved heads, with quaint circlet of hair,