Japanese Folk Tales - The Cicada and Kouboudaishi

Passage

A long time ago, at the time when the venerable Buddhist teacher Kouboudaishi visited the countryside in the different countries that made up Japan wearing clothes as dirty and ragged as a beggar, he came to the house of one farmer and asked to borrow a place to sleep for the night.

Koubodaishi's appearance was so rough, though, that the farmer refused and turned Kouboudaishi back. But after a while the farmer began to realise that it was Kouboudaishi that he had turned away. So in a hurry he climbed up a Zelkova tree and cried out in a loud voice "Kouboudaishi - it's OK, Kouboudaishi - it's OK".

However Kouboudaishi had already gone a long way away and couldn't turn round and come back.　It was while calling out forever like that eventually the farmer turned into a type of cicada called the "chiba hime semi".

Even these days when the 23rd of July comes along the reason that the cicada collect in the Zelkova trees and cry out in a high voice is because they think that the day has come around when Kouboudashi will come and borrow a place to sleep for the night.

Vocabulary

1. 弘法大師・こうぼうだいし・kouboudaishi
2. 蝉・せみ・cicada
3. 百姓・ひゃくしょう・farmer
4. 身なり・みなり・appearance
5. 迄・まで・until
6. 欅・けやき・Zelkova tree
7. 啼く・なく・cry out