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Fairy Tales of Japan — Part 11 of 24 (The Story of the Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower)
Description
An old man and his wife have one treasure: Shiro, the white dog they love like the child they never had. When Shiro scents gold beneath the yenoki tree, the poor couple is rich in a single day — and every wonder the faithful dog's memory brings them after, the envious neighbor next door tries to steal by imitation. A mortar of yenoki wood that multiplies rice cakes without end. A basket of ashes that wakes withered cherry trees into full bloom in the depth of autumn. And a great Daimio who names the old man Hana-Saka-Jijii — "the old man who makes the trees to blossom" — while the imitator's handful of the very same ashes blows back into his own face. Ozaki's telling of Japan's great kindness-rewarded tale.
From Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908), public domain; told in a fresh in-house rendering.
KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.