A tongue-cut sparrow

A tongue-cut sparrow

There lived a kind old man and his nasty old wife in a village.
The old man loved sparrows and took care of them like their children, while she hated them.
One day a sparrow flew to their garden and ate the rice-paste while she was washing clothes.
She got so angry that she caught the sparrow to cut her tongue and let her off.
The sparrow flew toward the mountain.

The kind old man heard the story and felt very sorry for the sparrow.
He decided to find her and apologize to her for it.
He walked and walked in the mountain, saying:
“Where is the house of the tongue-cut sparrow’s house?”
He could find the Sparrow-House and met the tongue-cut sparrow in the bamboo-forest with difficulty.
“I came here to apologize to you. Are you all right? Please forgive us.”
“Thank you for your coming here. I was so shocked but it was my fault. Why don’t you eat our dinner?”
He stayed there at that night.
When he returned to his house next morning, the sparrow said to him,
“These are our souvenirs for you. Which do you prefer, a big box or a small box?”
“I want neither of them. But if you do give me, I want a small one.”
He came home with a souvenir on his back.
He opened it to find much money, gold, silver, textile and so on in it.
The old woman asked him, “Why didn’t you bring a big one? I’ll go and bring it.”
“Where is the house of the sparrow with her tongue cut?” saying this, she went into the bamboo-forest.

She met the tongue-cut sparrow.
“Why did you come here?” asked the sparrow.
“I wanted to see you, because I took care of you so much.” answered the old woman.
“Ok. come in, please.”
“I want a souvenir at once. I want a big box.”

She carried it on her back with difficulty and left the sparrow-house.
On her way home, she couldn’t help seeing inside the box.
She unloaded it on the road and opened.
To her surprise, snakes, ghosts, centipedes, something dreadful came out one after another from the box.
She lost her consciousness.

The end