6 SILKWORMS. 



beast skulked away, and went off to summon its elders to its 

 assistance. The infant profited by its retreat and returned to the 

 palace. The stepmothers were greatly surprised at the failure of 

 their little plan, and had the child once more conveyed away, this 

 time to a valley which was much frequented by eagles. An eagle 

 soon arrived on the scene and carried the child to its nest, and 

 then departed, seeking other prey. In the nest a colloquy took 

 place between the princess and the eaglets, similar to what had 

 occurred with the lion's whelp, the reply to the child's question 

 being, of course, " Our father is the king of birds," and so on as 

 before. Again the child returned to the palace. This time the 

 stepmothers put her on a desert island. Here she was found by 

 a fisherman, who at first claimed her as his property, as an ocean 

 waif. But the little princess, still keeping up that dignified 

 bearing, which had already stood her in such good stead, informed 

 her captor that her father was "king of kings and of men," 

 whereupon he treated her kindly and took her back to the palace 

 again. 



This was too much for the stepmothers, who began to fear 

 that they should always have the child on their hands, and they 

 therefore decided to adopt more energetic measures. They gave 

 orders that she should be buried alive in the courtyard of the 

 palace. However, the sexton who performed the burial was 

 compassionate, and threw the sods in so lightly that the child 

 was able to breathe. That night an earthquake took place, and 

 once more the irrepressible princess appeared above ground un- 

 harmed. But the ingenuity of her enemies was not yet exhausted, 

 nor their ill-will quenched. They therefore had the trunk of a 

 mulberry tree hollowed out, and putting the infant inside, they 

 sent the whole apparatus adrift on the ocean. Tossed about by 

 wind and wave, the little bark with its precious freight, was at 

 last stranded on the coast of Japan, on reaching which the poor 

 little princess, utterly exhausted by the perils to which she had 

 been exposed, expired. But her sufferings touched the hearts of 

 the powers above, and the poor little body was transformed into 

 a silkworm, which fed on the mulberry tree. The tree took root, 

 flourished, and supported generation after generation of silkworms 

 descended from the worm-princess. Thus was the silkworm 

 introduced into Japan, and to this day, the four successive moults 

 to which we shall have occasion to refer in the next chapter, are 

 called the time of the lion, of the eagle, of the canoe, and of the 

 courtyard. 



This is the poetry and romance of the subject ; the simple 

 prose and history of the matter seems to be that eggs and trees 



