Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/166

150 At the foot of this mountain there lived a handsome shepherd boy named Adani. Every morning he went up the mountain driving several of his father’s cows. While they were grazing, he busied himself by cutting the green grass, and when the animals lay down in the shade to rest, he would lie beside them and fall asleep. Towards sunset the cows would low to one another, and the shepherd, awakened by their voices, would rise quickly from his slumbers, load each of the animals with grass, and make his way down the mountainside so as to reach home before dark.

On the mountain, in the sweet green grass, grew quantities of fragrant flowers, and trees and shrubs abounding in many-coloured blossoms. Adani would pluck great bunches of them, and after fashioning a beautiful bouquet, he would place it upon the altar of the Goddess as an offering to her beauty. The remainder of the flowers he would carry with him down the mountain to present to the girls of the village.

A few years passed. Adani grew more handsome. The Goddess of the mountain saw this, and secretly a great love sprang up in her heart for the shepherd lad. By this time the beautiful youth had already fallen in love with a girl of the village. Her name was Araginu, and she was noted for her great skill at weaving. She was a year or two older than her lover, and her beauty was so exquisite that it almost put the loveliness of the Goddess to shame.

Ever since the shepherd had fallen in love with Araginu, he would cut his grass in the morning only,