Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in Nami District, Tajima Province (present-day Mikata District, Hyogo Prefecture).
In his home was a baby who crawled about in the garden. One day, an eagle flying across the sky saw the infant, suddenly swooped down, seized the child in its talons, and soared back into the heavens, flying far away toward the east.
The father and mother grieved and lamented bitterly. They tried to chase after the eagle, but it was already flying high out of reach, and they could do nothing.
More than ten years later, the father whose child had been taken by the eagle happened to travel to Kasa District in Tango Province (present-day Maizuru City, Kyoto Prefecture) on business. He stayed overnight at a man’s house in that village.
In that house was a young girl, about twelve or thirteen years old.
When the girl went to draw water from a roadside well, a man from Tajima Province happened to be there as well, washing his feet.
At the well, a group of local girls had gathered to fetch water. They snatched away the bucket the girl from the house was using. She tried to take it back, and a quarrel broke out. The other girls jeered at her, shouting,
“Leftovers from an eagle’s meal!”
The girl was struck, began to cry, and ran home. The man from Tajima also returned to the house.
The householder asked the girl,
“Why are you crying?”
But she gave no answer.
The traveler from Tajima, who had witnessed the scene, asked the householder,
“Why did the girls call her ‘the leftovers from an eagle’s meal’?”
The host replied,
“One year, on a certain month and day, an eagle dropped something into its nest. We heard the cry of a baby, so we climbed up to look. There, inside the nest, was an infant crying. I took the baby down and raised her as my own. The local children know this story and mock her because of it.”
When the man from Tajima heard this, he remembered how an eagle had once taken his own child. Thinking further, he realized that the date the man mentioned matched exactly the time when his child had been carried off in Tajima.
He thought, Could this be my child? and asked,
“Did anyone claiming to be the child’s parent ever contact you?”
The host answered,
“No, no one ever did.”
Then the traveler said,
“There is something I must tell you.”
He told the story of how his child had been carried away by an eagle and said,
“I believe this girl is my daughter.”
The host was astonished. When they compared the girl’s features with those of the traveler, she indeed resembled him closely.
The host said,
“There can be no doubt you are truly her father.”
Overcome with emotion, the traveler wept, saying that he must have been divinely guided to this place.
The host, deeply moved by the mysterious bond that had reunited parent and child, said,
“Yet I too have raised her for many years, with all a parent’s love. Please, let me continue to share in her upbringing, as her second father.”
Thus, the girl came to live between the two homes, and she had two fathers – the one who had raised her, and the one who had given her life.
Strange indeed are the workings of fate.
An eagle, a creature that would normally devour its prey at once, instead brought the child back to its nest unharmed. Truly, this is a most wondrous thing – the result of karmic ties from a previous life.
Such, it is said, is the bond between parent and child that transcends lifetimes.
[Translation]
Siro Inuzuka
This text was created by using ChatGPT and Claude to translate a modern Japanese translation into English, and then making some modifications. There may be errors in the English expressions. Please correct any mistakes.
[Explanation]
Shinichi Kusano / Siro Inuzuka
In Kunio Yanagita’s The Life of the Mountains, the following passage appears:
“In the old days, it was said that children were sometimes carried off by tengu, but before the early modern period such tales were rare. In earlier times, far more common were stories – like that of the monk Roben of Todaiji of infants taken by eagles. Among these, there were even cases where the child’s life was spared and, raised by kind hands, was eventually reunited with its parents. Such stories are found in collections like the Konjaku Monogatari.”
Infant Roben snatched by eagle (by Tosa Mitsuoki)
[Cooperation]
Shinichi Kusano
●Japanese
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