A copy of the original Japanese text can be
found at: Aozora Bunko
By Miekichi Suzuki Three sisters—ladies of the stars—looked at the beautiful world below every night, and said again and again how they wished to go down there.
One night, the three discovered a lovely spring in the middle of a forest that was filled with flowering water lilies. All three wished to soak themselves in that water, but they had no way to go down to it. The three gazed at that spring all through the night, sighing.
The next night, the three once again looked at that spring and nothing else. The spring seemed even more beautiful than it had the previous night.
“Ah, I want to go down there. Just once, I’d like to bathe in that spring,” said the eldest sister. The younger two said they wanted to go down too.
The wife of the moon, who loved to walk on the peaks of tall mountains, heard them.
“If you wish to go that much, talk to the king of the spiders and ask him to let you climb down his spider silk,” she said.
The king of the spiders was sitting in the middle of his web, as always, and listening carefully. The ladies of the stars made their request.
“Come,
come. Do climb down,” said the king of the spiders. “My thread is light as air,
but it is as strong as steel.”
The three sisters grasped the thread and, one by one, smoothly made their way down beside the spring.
The light of the moon was shining upon the whole surface of the spring and it was full of the inviting scent of water lilies. The three took off their dazzling celestial robes and slid gently into the water.
The water was cool and refreshing. The three quietly made their way through the water lilies. The droplets of water on their skin sparkled and shone like pearls.
Meanwhile, near the spring, a young hunter lay asleep. Not noticing him, the three bathed happily in the water. The dozing hunter dreamed that three heavenly ladies were walking through the water and making the water lilies in the spring sway, and he suddenly awoke. When he raised himself on his elbows to look at the surface of the spring, he saw the three beautiful women enjoying themselves in the water under the bright light of the moon.
He made his way stealthily along the bank of the spring and came to the place where the three had taken off their robes. Then he took up the loveliest of the robes in his hand and looked at it. It was a splendid garment woven with gold and silver thread, with jewels of many colours sewn on as decoration. A large red ruby shaped like a heart glinted at the left breast.
The hunter carried the robe back to his previous spot and hid himself.
The three never even dreamed that this would happen, so they amused themselves bathing in the water for a long while. During this time, dawn gradually drew nearer. Then, the king of the spiders spoke from above the sky.
“It is time for you to come back home. At sunrise, the sun’s horses will cut through my thread with their hooves. Come up into the sky at once,” he said.
When they heard this, the ladies of the stars quickly climbed onto the shore. The two older sisters immediately put on their robes, climbed the invisible ladder of spider silk, and returned home to the heavens.
The youngest and most beautiful of the three sisters was surprised to find that her robe, which she had removed and placed with the others, was not there. Without it, she would be unable to return to the sky, so she searched the area as hard as she could, but did not find it.
While she was searching, the sun came up. The sun’s horses cut through the spider silk with their hooves.
The lady of the stars was deeply grieved and lay face down upon the grass, weeping. Then, birds of the forest awoke and came to her.
“Your beautiful clothes were taken by a young hunter. The hunter is beneath that tree, pretending to sleep,” they chirped to her.
When she
heard this, the lady of the stars tied some water lilies together and made a
robe of flowers to cover her body, then went to the hunter.
“Please
give back my gold and silver robe. In return, I will give you anything you
want,” she pleaded tearfully.
“I don’t
want anything,” said the hunter. “If you become my wife, I won’t need anything
else.”
When the lady of the stars picked up her robe, she found that the magic that would allow her to leave the earth was gone, so she had no choice but to become the hunter’s wife.
The hunter loved and cared for the lady of the stars. She was as beautiful as a water lily, and her voice sounded sweeter than the call of any songbird.
The hunter went out every day to hunt and bring back food. He would also tell her interesting tales about his day.
However, in spite of all that, she was unable to forget her home in the heavens. On moonlit nights she went alone to the spring with the water lilies, looked up at the heavens, and wept. She longed for her two sisters of the stars to come back down to her once more, but the two just silently blinked their blue eyes, and even though the king of the spiders let down his thread every night, they never tried to come down.
English translation by Eleanor Summers
