Japanese Folk Tale

138
The Yanagita Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale
136. The Old Man Who Made Flowers Bloom
"The little dog" (Inuko banashi), "The old man above and the old
man below" (Kami no jii shimo no jii), "The old man who scattered
ashes" (Hai maki jiji), "The old man who caught geese" (Gan tori jiji)
and such stories are included in this group.
Long ago in Oshli a good old man and a bad old man lived as
neighbors. Each left a basket in the river to catch fish. The old man
who lived upstream went early in the morning to see. He found a little
dog in his basket, but there were a lot of little fish in the basket of
the old man who lived downstream. He exchanged the contents of the
two baskets and went home. When the old man from below went, he
found the little dog caught in his basket. He picked it up and took it
home. If he fed it from a bowl, it grew as big as a bowl. When he fed
it from a pot, it grew as big as a pot. One day it went with the old
man to hunt deer. He helped the old man catch lots of them. The
neighbor borrowed the dog, but where the old man should have said
shishi [deer], he said hachi [bees], and he was stung by many of them.
He was angry and killed the dog and buried it under a rice-tree and
went home. The lower old man wondered why his dog was not returned.
He went to ask for it and heard that it had been killed and buried
under the rice-tree. He went to the mountain and cut the rice-tree. He
made a handmill from it and as he turned it, he sang for rice and
money to come out. Rice and money really came out and his life
became easy. His neighbor borrowed the handmill, but he and his wife
forgot the song. Instead of rice and money, filthy things they sang
about came flowing and filled their house. They declared it was the
fault of the handmill and they burned it. When the lower old man
heard that his handmill had been burned, he asked for the ashes, at
least. He threw the ashes into the eyes of geese and they fell dead
one after another. The old couple were eating goose soup when the old
man from next door came and asked how it happened. When he learned
how they had thrown ashes, he asked for some. He climbed onto his
roof on a night when there was a strong wind, and looking up the sky,
he sang by mistake, "Ashes go into Grandpa's eyes." The ashes flew
into his eyes and blinded him. He went rolling off the roof to where
his old woman was waiting. She thought he was a goose and hit him on
the head with a big mallet.
Iwate, Esashi-gun
Aomori: Nihon zenkoku 153, "The little dog Shirotae" (Koinu no Shirotae);
Tsugaru k 33. No title; Tsugaru m 43, "The old man who
scattered ashes" (Haimaki jii sama).
Hachinohe: MK II 8 26, "The old man who caught geese" (Gan tori
jiji no hanashi).
Iwate, Esashi-gun: Esashi 15, "The old man who scattered ashes" (Hai
maki jiji no hanashi). Example.