The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter(竹取物語)
Dating back to the late 9th or early 10th century, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (Taketori Monogatari) is revered as the oldest surviving work in the Japanese monogatari form, blending historical Heian-period sensibilities with celestial folklore. The narrative begins with a humble woodsman named Taketori no Okina, who discovers a tiny infant, no larger than a thumb, nestled inside a glowing stalk of bamboo. He and his wife raise the child as their own, naming her Kaguya-hime (the "Shining Princess of the Young Bamboo"). As she matures with supernatural speed into a woman of unparalleled beauty, her father’s luck changes; every stalk of bamboo he cuts begins to yield nuggets of gold, transforming the family from peasants into wealthy elites.
As word of her beauty spreads, Kaguya-hime attracts five persistent noble suitors. Disinterested in marriage and longing for a life away from earthly constraints, she devises a series of five impossible tasks, promising her hand only to the man who can retrieve a specific legendary artifact. These treasures included the stone begging bowl of the Buddha, a jeweled branch from the mythical island of Hōrai, a robe made of fire-rat skins, a colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and a cowry shell born from a swallow. One by one, the suitors fail; they attempt to pass off blackened pots as holy relics, hire craftsmen to forge jeweled branches, or purchase fraudulent robes that catch fire when tested. Even the Emperor of Japan eventually seeks her hand, and while she maintains a respectful correspondence with him for years, she ultimately rejects his proposals, claiming she is not of this world and cannot accompany him to his palace.
The story reaches its bittersweet climax during a summer of the full moon, as Kaguya-hime reveals her true nature: she is a celestial being from the Capital of the Moon, sent to Earth as a temporary punishment for a forgotten crime. As the date of her return approaches, the Emperor sends a battalion of guards to protect her, but they are easily overwhelmed by the blinding light of the celestial embassy descending from the sky. Before she departs, Kaguya-hime writes letters of apology to her foster parents and the Emperor, leaving behind a small vial of the elixir of immortality. However, as soon as a heavenly feather robe is draped over her shoulders, her earthly memories and compassion vanish, and she ascends to the Moon, leaving her mortal family in a state of inconsolable grief.
The tale concludes with a legendary explanation for the origin of Japan’s most famous landmark. Overcome with sorrow and unwilling to live forever without the princess, the Emperor orders his men to take his final letter and the elixir of immortality to the summit of the mountain closest to heaven and burn them. According to folklore, the word for immortality, fushi, became the name of the peak—Mount Fuji. The kanji later chosen for the name, meaning "mountain abounding with warriors," refers to the army that climbed the slopes to carry out the Emperor's command. To this day, the legend suggests that the smoke from that ancient fire still rises from the mountain's peak, symbolizing a message that continues to drift toward the Moon.
