Page:Japanese Gardens (Taylor).djvu/353

Rh Arkansas, took on a new charm after I heard the story of the Poet of the Persimmon tree.

A great warrior, called Ayabe, one day found in his garden, standing beneath a Persimmon tree, a child more beautiful than anything human can be. Asked who he was and whence he came the child replied, “I have no father and no mother, but the moon and the winds obey me, and poetry’s my delight.” The husband and wife at once adopted the child, and named him Hetomaro (Kakinomoto), which means ‘Persimmon tree,’ and he became in time a great poet. The guileless chronicler concludes that the veracity of this tale is unimpeachable, as the surname Ayabe is still borne in that place, and a Persimmon tree grows on the poet’s grave, whose fruit is pointed and black at the end, like a pen (ink-brush)!

In the Utsubo Monogatari we read of demons cutting up an immense Kiri tree (Paulownia imperialis), when a boy comes down from the sky with a fine accompaniment of thunder and lightning, and a dragon to ride on, and demands part of the tree to make into lutes. He makes thirty lutes, and sets off again with a convenient whirlwind to carry the musical instruments for him.

One curious belief is that only virile, healthy young men may graft trees or plant seed. A hundred—a thousand—graceful, pleasing ideas