Hukumusume fairy tale collection > Foreign language >Classical stories of the world

イラスト　myi　　　ブログ　sorairoiro

The Wild Boar Mother and Child

Translation　Laurence Hunter

Japanese　←→　Japanese ＆ English　←→　English

　I am Baron Munchausen.

　But I am sometimes called the boasting baron by others.

　Today I would like to tell you a wonderful story.



　Deep in a certain wood I know, I once found a mother and child wild boar together.

"This is such a great find." I thought to myself.

　Wild boar meat is the perfect thing for the winter, as the meat warms up the body after being eaten.

　In no time, I picked up my gun, aimed the barrel and fired my shot.

　Bang!

　But even expert shots miss.

　The bullet from the gun flew off somewhere, made a noise and off ran the child boar as fast as it could.

　However, for some reason, the mother boar just stood there and didn’t move an inch.

"Well, why don’t you run off? ... Why?"

　When I looked closely I noticed that the mother could not see and was blind.

　And that the end of the child boar’s tail was left dangling in the mouth of its mother.

　The child boar had made its mother hold onto its tail with her teeth and had guided her around.

　Somehow it seems my shot must have missed and cut off the child boars tail instead.

　So that’s why the mother does not move.

"Oh, how moving is the love between mother and child."

　Uncontrollably, tears fell from my eyes.

"I am so happy that my shot missed its mark"

　If my shot had killed one of the two, then surely I would have been blamed as a cruel brutal human by the other.

"Mother boar. I’m so sorry that I frightened you.”

　“I will never fire at you again, please live happily from now on."

　I then put my lunch that I had not yet eaten in front of the mother and then stepped back to my original position.

　Then, soon after, the child boar returned to its mother and they both happily ate up all my lunch,

　The mother then, once more took up the shortened tail of the young boar and went into the woods.

"The love of a parent and its child in this world is something beautiful and should never be separated."

　So, this is the lesson of the day.

　So, that’s that. When I have the opportunity, I would like to tell you another story.

The end

One piece of advice: Animals are more like us than we can imagine.

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