Page:Anthology of Japanese Literature.pdf/61

Rh Once you have done this, if your brother cultivates low fields, you should cultivate high fields. In this way your brother will certainly be impoverished in the space of three years, for I rule the water. If he should attack you out of anger, put forth the tide-flowing jewel to drown him. If he expresses grief, put forth the tide-ebbing jewel to save him. In this way you shall afflict him.”

With these words the God of the Sea gave the Prince the two jewels. He thereupon summoned together all the crocodiles and said to them, “The Prince Fire-fade is now about to proceed to the Upper Land. Who will in how many days escort him there and bring back a report?” Each of the crocodiles answered in accordance with the length of his body. One of them, a crocodile one fathom long, answered, “I will escort him and return in one day.” The God of the Sea said, “You shall be the one to escort him, but mind that you do not alarm him when crossing the middle of the sea.” Forthwith he seated the Prince on the crocodile’s head and saw him off. The crocodile escorted the Prince back to his home in one day, as he had promised. When the crocodile was about to return, the Prince untied the dirk that was by his side, and placing it on the crocodile’s neck, sent him back.

Fire-fade gave the fishhook to his elder brother in exactly the manner that the God of the Sea had prescribed. Thenceforward the elder brother became poorer and poorer, and in his fury came to attack Fire-fade. When he was about to attack, Fire-fade put forth the tide-flowing jewel to drown him; when the brother repented, he put forth the tide-ebbing jewel to save him. After he had thus been afflicted, the elder brother bowed his head and said, “From now on I shall be your guard day and night, and respectfully serve you.”

Hereupon the daughter of the God of the Sea came to Fire-fade and said, “I am with child, and the time for my delivery approaches. But I thought that the child of a heavenly deity should not be born in the sea plain, and I have come to you here.” At the edge of the Waves on the seashore she built a hall for her delivery, using cormorants’ feathers for thatch. But before the thatch was completed, she could not restrain the urgency of her womb, and she entered the hall. When she was about to be delivered, she said to her