The Love of a Silver Fox: Folk Tales from Seki CIty

by Darvin Babiuk

But old Granny Omitsu just shook her head. "There's no tanuki like that around here," she said bluntly, shutting the door firmly in their faces. "Not one that's going around stealing potatoes." There was nothing they could do, so the villagers left her alone and went home.

  After that, from time to time late at night, Granny Omitsu would hear a strange sound coming from behind her kitchen door: "Zu-zu-zu, ton-ton-ton," like someone was knocking on the back door. But she was always too afraid or too sleepy to get up and look. Then, one night, she peeped out timidly from a gap in the door and was surprised at what she saw. The little tanuki was backed up against her door, rubbing his tail against it and kicking it with his hind legs.

  "I wonder if it's the same little tanuki I saved before," Granny Omitsu said, opening the door a little wider to take a look. But her voice was so loud, it scared the little tanuki off, and all she saw was left to look at was some grass swaying in the bamboo thicket near her house. Nodding, the old lady closed the door.

  Every day after that, as night drew near, the old lady went out to the grass behind her house and put the leftovers from her dinner out in a rice bowl for the tanuki to eat: steamed sweet potatoes, boiled beans, or a little bit of devil=s root. The next morning, the rice bowl was always empty. The little tanuki would eat everything.

  Then, one day, by mistake, Granny Omitsu completely forgot to put out some food for the tanuki after she got home from her work in the fields. "Zu-zu-zu, ton-ton-ton," came the sound of scratching on her door again.

  "Ah, little Zuiton," said the old woman, giving the tanuki the same name as the sound it was making at her back door. "I forgot to feed you. Sorry. I'm coming."

  She went outside, and the little tanuki came a little nearer to where she was. And behind him, "Kwan, kwan," went the cry of a baby badger following behind him.

  "Ah, you've brought a playmate for me to meet, haven't you Zuiton?" said Granny Omitsu, holding out her hand. The badger flinched from her touch, but the tanuki nestled up against her.

  "I see, Zuiton. I see. You found yourself a stray badger, didn't you? So now you=re a big brother."

  She took turns petting the tanuki and baby badger, then went and made some rice balls and vegetables for them to eat. "They're so cute I can't help it," she thought, watching them eat.

  Two or three days later, the group from the village was back to see Granny Omitsu again. This time, they brought the Mayor. "Granny Omitsu? Hello. How are you? Fine? Good, good," said the Mayor, pushing his head into her door and looking around inside before she could protest. But he couldn't find what he expected to see, so he started to speak like he was very disappointed.

  "There's a rumour going around town that you're raising a tanuki here," he accused. "But you wouldn't do a thing like that, would you, Granny Omitsu?"

  "No, I wouldn't," said the old woman. "As you can see for yourself. Look. There's nothing here. I have nothing to hide."

  "Feeding wild animals is dangerous, said another man, thinking that now was the time to force the confession out of her, before she had time to think. Granny Omitsu was sure he must have been the man who set the traps. Some of them, like tanuki, are even possessed by evil spirits and can cast spells on people, like changing them into animals. Everyone in the village is very worried about what you're doing. Something=s stealing all our potatoes at night."

  "Thank you for worrying so much about me," Granny Omitsu said quietly after the last person was finished. She needed some time to think. The tanuki needed her help but the villagers= hearts were good. Come back tomorrow and I might have something to tell you.@ The villagers went home, sure Granny Omitsu would tell them about the tanuki potato-thief the next day.

  But, unknown to anyone, they hadn't come alone. Three village children had been following them, Sohei, Senta, and Tetsuzoh: the sons of the Mayor, a hunter and another important villager. Now that the adults were gone, the three children crept out of the grass where they'd been hiding.

  "Granny Omitsu!" called out Sohei. "Is it true you're lying to everyone and taking care of a tanuki?"

  "Well, if it isn't the Mayor's precious son,@ Granny Omitsu said smiling. Slowly, she began to talk to them about tanuki.

  "That's just a lie, you know. That tanuki can turn into people. Or turn people into animals. Spread by people who are afraid and don't have enough guts to scare a chicken. Why don't you come out here and I'll tell you about it."

  The children came out and Granny Omitsu started to tell them about tanuki. The children were very happy to listen to such interesting stories and leaned forward on their elbows, drinking it in.

  "They don't come out in the daytime, do they?" Sohei, the Mayor's son asked. "Tanuki, I mean."

  "That's right. Only early in the morning before it gets light, or at night after dark," the old lady answered.

  "What do they do in the daytime, then?" Senta asked.

  "Why, sleep of course. Either in their own den, or one they've borrowed from a badger. Then, when it gets dark, they come out and walk around."

  "I didn't know that," Tetsuzoh, the hunter's son said, then quickly stuck his tongue out because he was ashamed. His dad was a hunter. He should have known that.

  All three of them came to like the old lady very much. All they talked about on the way home was what Granny Omitsu had told them.

  "You know, I thought Granny Omitsu was just a scary old woman who lived in the mountains alone like a hermit," Sohei said. "But she's not like that at all, is she?"

  "No, not at all," agreed Senta. "Everyone in the village says that, but I think she's really nice. She's got a kind heart."

  "And she's fun to talk to, too," Tetsuzoh said, nodding.

  "You heard what Granny Omitsu said,@ Sohei said. It=s not the tanuki stealing our potatoes. Let's find who is doing it and catch it. What do you say?" The three of them promised to meet the next night and do just that: catch whatever was stealing their potatoes.

  That night, when the sky around Mt. Asakura became stained with dark, the three children met in a bamboo grove near Granny Omitsu's house. Long ago, there had been a river flowing there, but now the water was all dried up so there was a low hollow in the ground there. You could tell what was going on around the potato field from there with a single glance.

  Little by little, it began to get dark and the night breezes began to blow through the mountain pass. Just in front of them were three tall cedar trees and behind them they could see the light shining brightly through the paper sliding doors to Granny Omitsu's house. As the three of them waited, they began to get tired and bored. And scared.

  "I wonder if the potato thief is even going to come tonight, Senta whined.

  "Don't worry," said Sohei. "It will. It'll get hungry and come. Be patient!" Secretly, he was starting to doubt if it would come, too, but he said it like the son of the Mayor would.

  "It's cold. I'm freezing,@ Tetsuzoh said, rubbing his hands together. Please hurry up and come out, Mr. Potato Thief."

  Just then, a sound came from the road on the mountain pass. Their eyes almost bulging from their heads, the three of them crawled to the top of the riverbank and peeked through the dry grass.

  "Thud!" came the heavy sound of two black objects jumping out of the darkness.

  "I heard something,@ Sohei whispered. What should we do?" The three of them sat cowering in the grass unable to move, their bodies frozen like rocks. The first object dove into the grass near Granny Omitsu's house, then stood there unmoving, like it was dead. The second went scampering up a cedar tree.

  Next, came a strange, grunting sound, making their hair stand on end. All three of them were shaking so hard they didn't think they could stand it, but they were too scared to even move. They stood there frozen to the ground like rocks.

  With a terrible force, whatever made the sound ran past the cedar trees in front of their very eyes. Then it was gone.

  "BANG!" came the sound of something echoing down from the mountain pass just after it disappeared c
ompletely and they’d caught their breath.

  The door to Granny Omitsu's house opened, the old lady peered into the darkness for a little while and came out. "Oh, Zuiton. What happened? Are you alright?" she said, picking up the tanuki from the grass.

  "That's the old lady. Granny Omitsu. And the tanuki, too," whispered Sohei.

  The old lady walked up to the base of the cedar trees and spoke into the branches. "It's okay. You can come down now," she said, and the badger came scrambling down the tree with a rustle.

  "You've been playing in the sand again, haven't you? You've got sand all over," Granny Omitsu said, picking the badger up under her arm and going back to her house where she closed the sliding paper door.

  The three boys were so scared they were barely able to get their spirits back and climb up to the top of the dry river bank. Hungry and cold, trembling and shivering all the way, they began to walk home. Before long, they saw two men with a lantern coming the other way.

  "What are you doing? You look like three lost dogs!" boomed out a loud voice behind the lantern

  It was Sohei's father. Beside him, a gun under his arm, stood Tetsuzoh's dad. He was carrying a dead boar on his back, its limbs twisted around his waist like the eyes of a potato.

  "You mean that big scary monster was this pig?" Sohei asked loudly.

  "Then it was probably the potato thief, too," said Tetsuzoh.

  Just then, Granny Omitsu came out of her house to see what all the noise was about.

  "How does a bunch of boiled mountain chestnuts sound?" she asked. "Why don't you come in?"

  As she spoke, the tanuki and baby badger came toddling up behind her and rubbed against her.

  "Ha, ha!" laughed Tetsuzoh's father, the hunter. "They were too scared to come anywhere near me, but they follow you around like kittens," he said enviously.

  "Well, of course you wouldn't come, would you, Zuiton" said the Mayor. "Who=d go near someone chasing and shooting at you?" He was smiling when he said it, so everyone joined him in a big laugh.

  "What are we waiting for? Let's go eat."

  As they walked into the house, the fire in the hearth was blazing and the tanuki and the badger were near, so Granny Omitsu opened the window up wide. Up near the top of Mt. Asakura, the big full-moon was coming out. Happily, she put her hands together and prayed for her happiness.