The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

At a Glance

• Central figures: Kaguya-hime, the Shining Princess found inside a glowing bamboo stalk; Taketori no Okina, the old bamboo cutter who raises her; and the Emperor of Japan, who falls in love with her.
• Setting: Ancient Japan - a bamboo forest, a humble household, and the imperial court; the story is drawn from the Taketori Monogatari, considered the oldest Japanese prose narrative.
• The turn: Kaguya reveals that she is not of this world but a celestial being from the Moon Kingdom, and that her time on Earth is ending.
• The outcome: A lunar procession descends to reclaim her; she departs, forgetting everything she knew on Earth, while her foster parents and the Emperor are left behind in grief.
• The legacy: The Emperor burns Kaguya’s farewell letter and the elixir of immortality on the highest mountain in Japan - the smoke rising from Mount Fuji is said to be the remnant of that grief.

An old bamboo cutter named Taketori no Okina walked into the forest one morning and found a stalk that glowed from within. He cut it open. Inside, no larger than his thumb, sat a tiny radiant girl. He carried her home in his hands.

He and his wife had no children. They named the girl Kaguya-hime - Shining Princess - and raised her as their own. She grew with unnatural speed. What should have taken years took weeks. By the time she was fully grown, her beauty was of a kind that seemed to belong to no particular season, to no ordinary face. And every time Taketori cut bamboo after that, he found gold hidden in the stalks. The household went from bare to prosperous without ceremony.

Gold in the Stalks

The bamboo cutter’s sudden wealth was not something he sought or entirely understood. He did not speak of it much. He cut the bamboo, found the gold, provided for his family. His wife fed Kaguya and dressed her well and loved her the way women love daughters who came to them late and unexpectedly. For years the three of them lived quietly in the way modest people live - grateful, careful, asking few questions about the source of their good fortune.

But Kaguya’s beauty was not the kind that stays hidden. Travelers passed. Servants talked. Word spread in the way word always spreads, first through the nearby villages, then through the province, then to the capital itself. Noblemen began appearing at the gate.

The Five Impossible Tasks

Five princes arrived in sequence, each certain he would be the one. Kaguya had no interest in any of them, but she was not cruel. She set each one a task. If he brought her what she asked, she would marry him. If he could not, he would accept her refusal.

To the first she gave a simple instruction: retrieve the stone begging bowl that the Buddha had carried in India. To the second, a jeweled branch from the island of Mount Horai. To the third, the legendary robe woven from the pelt of the fire-rat. To the fourth, a jewel taken from the neck of a living dragon. To the fifth, the cowrie shell born from the body of a swallow.

None succeeded. The first returned with a bowl he had purchased in a temple shop, hoping she would not notice. She noticed immediately. The second commissioned artisans to craft a jeweled branch, presenting it as though it were real, and almost convinced her until the craftsmen arrived demanding payment and the deception unraveled in front of everyone. The others failed in various ways - turned back by sea storms, injured in failed climbs, or simply unable to locate what did not exist to be found. Kaguya declined each of them without anger and without regret.

The Emperor’s Letters

The Emperor, whose name was Mikado, heard what the princes had not been able to accomplish and sent his own emissaries. When he finally saw Kaguya himself he proposed at once. She was more moved by him than she had been by the others - she was fond of him, and she was honest about that - but she declined. She told him she did not belong to this world and could not enter the imperial court as a wife. He could not compel her without making her miserable, and he was too proud to do that.

So they wrote to each other. The Emperor sent letters and she replied. This continued for some time - a correspondence that was not quite love and not quite friendship but something between, conducted in careful brushwork across good paper. Kaguya kept his letters. She did not know then how little time remained.

The Moon on Clear Nights

Her foster parents noticed it first. On nights with a full moon, Kaguya would stand in the garden and look up. Not with wonder - with recognition. They asked her about it. Several times she deflected. Then one evening she told them.

She was not from this world. She had been sent here - exiled, she said, or perhaps placed here for a time - from the Moon Kingdom. That time was nearly over. Her celestial family was coming to take her back. She did not know the exact night, only that it was close, and that when it came she would have no choice in the matter.

She wept. Taketori wept. His wife could not speak. The old couple who had found gold in bamboo stalks and a daughter in a single stalk could not imagine the house without her, and they had never had the gift of imagining the unimaginable. They tried to prepare anyway, because there was nothing else to do.

The Celestial Procession

It came on a full moon night. A procession of light descended from the sky and gathered at the edge of the garden. The Emperor had been told, and he sent soldiers - palace guards with orders to stop whatever came for her. The guards could not move. Some said later they simply forgot what they were doing. The light was too bright to look at directly, and by the time it dimmed, the procession was already entering the house.

Kaguya had written letters. She left one for her foster parents and one for the Emperor. To Taketori and his wife she gave a small vial - the elixir of immortality, a gift from the Moon Kingdom. They could drink it and live.

They refused. They said that living without her would not be living in any way they recognized.

She was dressed in a robe of celestial feathers. As the robe settled on her shoulders, her face changed - the particular attention of a person thinking about something left behind gave way to simple clarity. She forgot. The robe removed everything. When she rose into the sky with the procession, she was not remembering Taketori, or his wife, or the letters, or the Emperor.

Mount Fuji

The Emperor received his letter. He read it. He sat with the vial for a long time. He was the most powerful man in Japan. The elixir in his hands could make him the most powerful man in Japan for as long as Japan endured. He gave both items - the letter and the vial - to his men with instructions. He told them to take these things to the highest mountain and burn them.

They climbed to the summit and made a fire. The smoke rose above the peak and kept rising, higher than smoke normally goes, as though it had somewhere it needed to reach. The mountain has been smoldering ever since.