a canine story

The internet has bored me. I'm going back to reading. Among the books I've settle down with are some in Japanese that have been sitting on my shelf gathering dust. There are enough of them that I've decided to read a book in Japanese between every book I read in English. This way, I "study" Japanese without sitting down and re-memorizing vocabulary words.

My latest book was the "Hakkenden," which translates into "The Story of Eight Dogs." This is a Japanese tale set in samurai times (1600-1700ish). I'd always heard about it, and thought it might be another cute tale like Momotaro, the boy born from a peach who goes off to fight the ogres with a monkey, dog, and pheasant as his companions. About two chapters into the book, however, I learned this was not to be the case. Here's my shortened version:

A beautiful princess raises a cute puppy. Her castle gets attacked and is about to be overrun when her father promises the dog anything he wants if he'll go out and bite off the head of the enemy leader. The dog does, the castle is saved, and the dog indicates that he wants to marry the princess. Her father is a man of his word, and the two are married. They go up and live a secluded life in the mountains, where the princess spends her time in Buddhist prayer.

Unfortunately, the man the princess was supposed to marry is very angry at this arrangement. He goes up the mountain and kills the dog. The princess commits suicide in grief. When she dies, her rosary (consisting of eight beads) breaks apart and each bead magically disappears to a different part of the country. The rest of the story recounts the gathering of the eight beads, each of which end up with a child whose name coincidentally carries the character for "dog" and whose skin carries a special mark.

The children grow up to be great samurai (thanks to the protection of the beads). When two of them realize that they both have a special bead and mark, they conclude that there are other "brothers" like them out there, and begin searching the country for them. The tale recounts their adventures on the way to creating a great brotherhood. (Lots of fighting, being caught in schemes by evil lords, and meeting monsters.) In the end, they are all gathered together, just in time to save the princess's kingdom once again from enemy invaders.

They are greatly rewarded and settle comfortably. When they are old, they all go up on the mountain where the princess is buried and live there until one day, when all of their bodies disappear.

The End.