Japanese fairytale

Kachi Kachi Yama

kachi-kachi being an onomatopoeia of the sound a fire makes and Yama meaning "mountain", roughly translates to Fire-Crackle Mountain is a Japanese fairytale. The culture of this story is karma (what goes around, comes around).

It tells a story of a man and his wife who in their farming when a troublesome tanuki (beaver looking animal) goes into their basket and starts eating the fruit and vegetables the farmer had just plucked in his fields. Out of anger the farmer pounced on the tanuki capturing so they could kill and cook it later. That day the farmer left for town and his wife was left to cook the tanuki. The tanuki cried and begged the man's wife to set him free, promising never to bother the fields again. After much convincing, the wife set the animal free, only to have it turn on her and ran off. The farmer returned home to see his wife badly beaten, he carried to the bed and cleaned her up; the poor man in shock and horrible grief.

It just so happened that the unfortunate couple had been good friends with a rabbit that lived nearby. When the rabbit heard about what happened, he immediately came to the man and told him, "I'll avenge the pain of you and your wife for you!" So the rabbit set out and soon found the villainous tanuki. Pretending to befriend the tanuki, the rabbit did all sorts of unpleasant things to him: the rabbit persuaded the tanuki to help her left some wood that she needed then when she was walking behind set the wood on fire, burning the hair on the tanuki back off. The next the tanuki returned and was complaining about the burn on his back showing it to the rabbit pretended to simpifise with the tanuki, telling him she some that will treat; the rabbit put peppery poultice which strung the burn on the tanuki back.

After all the horrible things that the rabbit had put him through, the tanuki challenged the rabbit to a life or death contest to prove who the better creature was. They were each to build a boat, and race across a lake in them. The rabbit carved his boat out of a fallen tree trunk, but the foolish tanuki fashioned his out of mud. The two competitors each got off to a great start, but as they approached the middle of the lake, the tanuki's mud boat dissolved and came apart. As the tanuki was struggling to stay afloat, the rabbit proclaimed that he was a friend of the human couple, and that this was the tanuki’s punishment for his horrible deeds. His boat gone, the tanuki was left drowned. The rabbit returned to the family telling them all of what had happened.

Below are some links to Kachi-Kachi Yami... there are two parts to the clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEGO-KrRec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fAD0c3h6UQ