Once there was a little girl who was very pretty, but also very lazy.
Her parents were rich, and had a great many servants; and these servants
were very fond of the little girl, and did everything for her which she
ought to have been able to do for herself. Perhaps this was what made
her so lazy. When she grew up into a beautiful woman she still remained
lazy; but as the servants always dressed and undressed her, and arranged
her hair, she looked very charming, and nobody thought about her faults.
At last she was married to a brave warrior, and went away with him to
live in another house where there were but few servants. She was sorry
not to have as many servants as she had had at home, because she was
obliged to do several things for herself which other folks had always
done for her, and it was a great deal of trouble to her to dress
herself, and take care of her own clothes, and keep herself looking neat
and pretty to please her husband. But as he was a warrior, and often had
to be far away from home with the army, she could sometimes be just as
lazy as she wished, and her husband's parents were very old and
good-natured, and never scolded her.
Well, one night while her husband was away with the army, she was
awakened by queer little noises in her room. By the light of a big paper
lantern she could see very well, and she saw strange things.
Hundreds of little men, dressed just like Japanese warriors, but only
about one inch high, were dancing all around her pillow. They wore the
same kind of dress her husband wore on holidays (_Kamishimo_, a long
robe with square shoulders), and their hair was tied up in knots, and
each wore two tiny swords. They all looked at her as they danced, and
laughed, and they all sang the same song over and over again:
"Chin-chin Kobakama,
Yomo fuké s[=o]ro--
Oshizumare, Hime-gimi!--
Ya ton ton!--"
Which meant: "We are the Chin-chin Kobakama; the hour is late; sleep,
honorable, noble darling!"
The words seemed very polite, but she soon saw that the little men were
only making cruel fun of her. They also made ugly faces at her.
She tried to catch some of them, but they jumped about so quickly that
she could not. Then she tried to drive them away, but they would not go,
and they never stopped singing:
"Chin-chin Kobakama...."
and laughing at her. Then she knew they were little fairies, and became
so frightened that she could not even cry out. They danced around her
until morning; then they all vanished suddenly.
She was ashamed to tell anybody what had happened, because, as she was
the wife of a warrior, she did not wish anybody to know how frightened
she had been.
Next night, again, the little men came and danced; and they came also
the night after that, and every night, always at the same hour, which
the old Japanese used to call the "hour of the ox"; that is, about
two o'clock in the morning by our time. At last she became very sick,
through want of sleep and through fright. But the little men would not
leave her alone.
When her husband came back home he was very sorry to find her sick in
bed. At first she was afraid to tell him what had made her ill, for fear
that he would laugh at her. But he was so kind, and coaxed her so
gently, that after a while she told him what happened every night.
He did not laugh at her at all, but looked very serious for a time. Then
he asked:
"At what time do they come?"