Momotaro the Peach Boy

Long, long ago, in a little house at the foot of the green hills of Japan, there lived an old man and an old woman. They were poor farmers, and every day they had to work hard to earn their rice. Each morning the old man went out to cut grass for the neighbours, while the old woman stayed home, kept the house, and tended their little rice field. More than anything in the world they wished for a child, but no child had ever come. Every evening, as they sat by their little fire, they sighed quietly together and hoped that one day the sky might hear them.

Early one summer morning, the old man went up into the hills as usual to cut grass, and the old woman took a basket of dirty clothes and walked down to the river to wash. The water was as clear as crystal, and tiny fish darted to and fro between the stones. The soft tassels of the willows nodded in the wind, and the grass on the bank glistened like green velvet. The woman sat at the edge, dipped the clothes in the water, and rubbed them against a stone. She felt happy, without quite knowing why, as if something lovely were about to happen on this very day.

Just then she heard a soft splash, and something large came bobbing down the river. She looked up and could hardly believe her eyes. An enormous peach, pink and shimmering gold, was drifting toward her with the current. In all her long life she had never seen such a peach. 'It must taste wonderful,' she whispered. 'I must take it home to my old man.' She reached out her arm, but the peach floated too far out. Then she remembered an old song and began to clap in time: 'Distant water is bitter, near water is sweet. Pass by the bitter, and come to the sweet!'

And look! The peach began at once to move closer to the bank, nearer and nearer, until it stopped right in front of her hands. The old woman lifted it up and was amazed by how heavy it was. She put the clothes back in her bamboo basket, laid the peach over her arm, and hurried home as fast as her legs would carry her. All the way she thought about what her husband would say. The time passed slowly as she waited, but at last, as the sun was sinking behind the hills, the old man came back with a great bundle of grass on his back, so large that she could hardly see him at all.