Hukumusume fairy tale collection > Foreign language (English) > Japanese classical stories

The tale-bearer priest

(Japanese classical stories)(Yamaguchi)

Translation　ちいさな翻訳屋さん

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　A long time ago, there lived a priest who was called “a tale-bearer priest” among village people in a temple.

　Since the priest always made up stories, no one in the village believed what he said.



　One day, an idea came up in his mind to surprise people.

　He put an announcement by the large pond in front of the temple’s gateway.

“Tomorrow at noon, a dragon is going up above from this pond. From dragon, the master of the pond. ”

　Now the people who saw this announcement were very surprised.

　People believed the announcement because it was said that a dragon was living in this pond from long time ago.

　No wonder why everyone was piled around the pond in the next morning.

　By looking at the scene, the priest laughed delightedly.

“A-ha-ha-ha! Look at that, those village people were completely tricked by my joke.

　Well, I will go in front of them at noon and tell them it’s my joke.

　I can’t wait to see their amazed look.”

　Soon after, noon had come.

“All right. It’s time to go.”

　As he was going out, suddenly the sky was getting cloudy and dark.

　Then a real dragon showed up from the pond before him

and vanished to the dark cloud with glittering his silvery scales.

　The village people were very surprised, but the priest who tricked people was more surprised.

“Oh my goodness! I can’t believe a real dragon was actually living in the pond.”

　He was stunned for a while, but soon he ran in front of the village people and said loudly,

“People! Listen to me! I put the announcement.

　Because of me put the announcement, the dragon showed up!”

　But the village people said,

“Here comes his lie as always. He is taking the credit for the dragon’s appearance! ”

“He is good-for-nothing!”

　And no one believed the priest at all.

The end

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