No. 87 — The story seller

A son was given two hundred ryo by his parents and set out on a journey. From a story seller who sold each tale for a hundred ryo, he bought two teachings: do not stay the night in a house without pillars, and take care to watch anything strange closely. Following the teachings, he avoided an old house without pillars and so saved his life. At a ruined temple he watched a ball of fire turn into gold and fall beneath the floor, and he dug up the treasure there. He brought his parents to live with him and became a choja, a very rich man.

Source: Ogasawara Kenkichi (ed.), Shiwa-gun Mukashibanashi-shu (1938) — National Diet Library Digital Collections (Japanese text)
Land: Shiwa District
Type: Yokai and the Uncanny, Strange Fates

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.