Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/337



HE Peach (Momo) has neither the popularity with the masses nor the high regard of the select few that the Plum and Cherry blossoms have. It is the favourite flower of the little girls’ festival, early in March, of which more elsewhere. Hideyoshi’s palace on Momo Yama (Peach Mountain), the most beautiful of any of the many beautiful palaces he built, was set about with Peach orchards, and how glad must have been the old warrior’s heart in the spring!

A favourite story of the Peach is that of Momotaro, a kind of Far Eastern version of Tom Thumb. An old woman (it always seems to be an old woman in these legends) was washing clothes on the bank of a stream, when she saw a magnificent Peach come floating along, which she charmed to the bank with a song. It was so unusually fine that she stopped her work and hurried home to take it to her