Thursday, November 18, 2004

My Lord Bag of Rice and the Centipede

I thought a centipede was a creepy crawly behind my cupboard but once it was a terrifying, man-eating monster the size of a mountain. It lived in the mountains of Japan near Lake Biwa. The dragon king of that particular lake asked the famous hero Hidesato to kill it for him. The hero slew it by shooting an arrow, dipped in his own saliva, into the brain of the monster.

The dragon king rewarded Hidesato by giving him a rice-bag which could not be emptied and which fed his family for centuries. The dragon king also gave Hidesato a roll of silk that never ended, a cooking pot the needed no fire, and a bell hidden under a lake.

From then on Hidesato was known as My Lord bag of Rice

Full Story at Folklore @ Bella Online

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