Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

The Crackling Mountain
Once upon a time there lived an old man and an old woman, who kept a
pet white hare, by which they set great store. One day, a badger, that
lived hard by, came and ate up the food which had been put out for the
hare; so the old man, flying into a great rage, seized the badger, and, tying
the beast up to a tree, went off to the mountain to cut wood, while
the old woman stopped at home and ground the wheat for the evening
porridge. Then the badger, with tears in his eyes, said to the old
woman—
"Please, dame, please untie this rope!"
The dame, thinking that it was a cruel thing to see a poor beast in pain,
undid the rope; but the ungrateful brute was no sooner loose, than he
cried out—
"I'll be revenged for this," and was off in a trice.
When the hare heard this, he went off to the mountain to warn the old
man; and whilst the hare was away on this errand, the badger came
back, and killed the dame. Then the beast, having assumed the old
woman's form, made her dead body into broth, and waited for the old
man to come home from the mountain. When he returned, tired and
hungry, the pretended old woman said—
"Come, come; I've made such a nice broth of the badger you hung up.
Sit down, and make a good supper of it."
With these words she set out the broth, and the old man made a hearty
meal, licking his lips over it, and praising the savoury mess. But as soon
as he had finished eating, the badger, reassuming its natural shape, cried
out—
"Nasty old man! you've eaten your own wife. Look at her bones, lying
in the kitchen sink!" and, laughing contemptuously, the badger ran
away, and disappeared.
Then the old man, horrified at what he had done, set up a great lamentation;
and whilst he was bewailing his fate, the hare came home, and,
seeing how matters stood, determined to avenge the death of his mistress.
So he went back to the mountain, and, falling in with the badger,
who was carrying a faggot of sticks on his back, he struck a light and set
fire to the sticks, without letting the badger see him. When the badger
heard the crackling noise of the faggot burning on his back, he called
out—
"Holloa! what is that noise?"
148