No. 9 — The Rich Man of Koyama

In Ketaka District there was a wealthy choja, a very rich man, named the Rich Man of Koyama. On a summer day when many people were planting rice in his broad fields, sunset drew near before the planting was finished, so the choja beckoned the setting sun three times with a golden fan and drew it back, and had the planting completed. The next morning, the choja's broad fields had vanished without a trace, and in their place lake water had gathered, and the rice that had been planted had become reeds. It is told that, as punishment for the arrogance of stopping the sun, it turned into a lake in one night, and this lake is Lake Koyama.

Source: Inpaku Shiwakai (ed.), Inpaku Mukashibanashi (1911) — National Diet Library Digital Collections (Japanese text)
Land: Inaba and Hoki
Setting: Lake Koyama, Tottori City, Tottori
Type: How Places Got Their Names, Strange Fates
Beings: choja

This is an English rendering of our short Japanese summary of the source tale — a summary translated from the Japanese, not a translation of the original text. The summary was drafted and translated with AI assistance, and names and numbers were checked against our records. Tale numbers for this book follow the order in which the tales appear; they are ours, not the book's.