dared to take up his abode and be the terror of the King's subjects.
Not long shall it find pleasure in devouring innocent folk. I will
start out and kill it at once."

With these words he set out for the Ibuki Mountain, where the monster
was said to live. He climbed up a good distance, when all of a sudden,
at a winding in the path, a monster serpent appeared before him and
stopped the way.

"This must be the monster," said the Prince; "I do not need my sword
for a serpent. I can kill him with my hands."

He thereupon sprang upon the serpent and tried to strangle it to death
with his bare arms. It was not long before his prodigious strength
gained the mastery and the serpent lay dead at his feet. Now a sudden
darkness came over the mountain and rain began to fall, so that for the
gloom and the rain the Prince could hardly see which way to take. In a
short time, however, while he was groping his way down the pass, the
weather cleared, and our brave hero was able to make his way quickly
down the mountain.

When he got back he began to feel ill and to have burning pains in his
feet, so he knew that the serpent had poisoned him. So great was his
suffering that he could hardly move, much less walk, so he had himself
carried to a place in the mountains famous for its hot mineral springs,
which rose bubbling out of the earth, and almost boiling from the
volcanic fires beneath.

Yamato Take bathed daily in these waters, and gradually he felt his
strength come again, and the pains left him, till at last one day he
found with great joy that he was quite recovered. He now hastened to
the temples of Ise, where you will remember that he prayed before
undertaking this long expedition. His aunt, priestess of the shrine,
who had blessed him on his setting out, now came to welcome him back.
He told her of the many dangers he had encountered and of how
marvelously his life had been preserved through all--and she praised
his courage and his warrior's prowess, and then putting on her most
magnificent robes she returned thanks to their ancestress the Sun
Goddess Amaterasu, to whose protection they both ascribed the Prince's
wonderful preservation.

Here ends the story of Prince Yamato Take of Japan.

MOMOTARO, OR THE STORY OF THE SON OF A PEACH.

Long, long ago there lived, an old man and an old woman; they were
peasants, and had to work hard to earn their daily rice. The old man
used to go and cut grass for the farmers a