Page:A History of Japanese Literature (Aston).djvu/137

Rh accompanies him, by an inward gift is able to see a number of devils, invisible to the ordinary eye, carrying away the offerings of food made to them. He afterwards becomes a great magician.

A guitar, a valued heirloom of the Mikado, disappears mysteriously. One of the courtiers who is a great musician traces it by its sound, and finds that it has been purloined by a devil. On its being explained to the devil that the guitar is a much-prized possession of the Mikado, he at once returns it.

A young woman who is urged by her parents to take a second husband, fortifies her refusal to do so by the example of a swallow which had built its nest in their house, and whose mate had been taken from it. It goes away in the autumn, and when it comes back the following summer it is still alone.

Among other fictitious Monogatari which have come down to us from this period, there may be mentioned the Idzumi Shikibu Monogatari, the Ima Monogatari, the Tsutsumi Chiunagon Monogatari, the Akiyo no Naga-monogatari, and the Matsuho Monogatari, which, although all useful for the study of the state of society at this time, do not present any special features of literary interest. Of many others the names only have reached us.