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And there came an angel out of heaven who said ‘Be this as you have said, and it became a rock, and moved neither when the sun shone nor when it rained, and there came a man with pick-axe and sharp chisel and heavy hammer, who cut stones out of the rock.
And the rock said ‘What is this, that the man has power over me and cuts stones out of my bosom? And it was discontented. It cried ‘I am weaker than he, I should like to be that man.’
And there came an angel out of heaven who said ‘Be this as you have said’ and he became a stone cutter. And he cut stones out of the rock with heavy labour, and he laboured hard for small wages, and was contented.’
When I first came across this story, it reminded me of one which is to be found in Grimm’s Popular tales, that entitled “The Fisherman and his wife,” the moral of which is “Be content with your station.”
The book which contains “the Japanese stone-cutter” being a Dutch one, and the tale evidently containing many touches of colouring which are not Japanese, it was necessary before drawing any inference from its resemblance to the well-known German tale, to make some enquiry as to its authenticity and its real origin.
The result of the enquiry has been that no such tale is to be found at present in any Japanese book, but that one in the main similar is current in the mouths of the people, and that in a great variety of forms. One version has peen obtained for me by Mr. J. C. Hall from a Japanese teacher, who wrote it down from recollection. Mr. Hall has kindly transcribed the Japanese text into English characters, and has furnished me with a translation, which is as follows.
The Story of the Ambitious Mice.
‘In a certain place there lived a pair of mice, and a daughter was born unto them. The parent mice were uncommonly fond of her, and wished to marry their daughter to whatever was most powerful in the whole world, so they set about choosing a son-in-law. A neighbour mouse
