Tengus and the Hana-matsuri (Aichi Pref.)

This story is from Kitashitara district in Aichi prefecture, which is well known where the Hana-matsuris are held. "Hana" means flower and "matsuri" means festival, so that Hana-matsuri is a Flower Festival. They are performed in each village between the end of December and January every year.People pray for a good crop of coming new year burning a bonfire and dancing all through the cold nights.

There lived a man named Kousaku who liked dancing more than anything else in a village. When the season of Hana-matsuli came, he visited every village to dance around. One day, when the festival was over, he went to a hill to mow. After mowing, when he was taking a rest, he heard sounds of Japanese wooden flutes. He was impatient to dance, but he said to himself, , "No, no. Never I can dance in the mountain." He had heard that Tengu, which was a kind of goblins with a long nose, might take him away if he danced or whistle in a hill. Kousaku kept not to do for a while, but at last he couldn't stop moving his body and began to dance.

As he was completely absorbed in dancing, he didn't realize how long time had passed. Then unexpectedly he heard a voice to call him, " Yah!" He found a tengu standing behind him. "Dance with us." the tengu said. Kousaku was so surprised to hear it he couldn't move at all. The tengu threw something like a rope toward the hills, then strangely a passage appeared.

The tengu took his hand and ran crossing over the hills. While Kousaku, he couldn't open his eyes for fear all the way running over the hills. Just then, the tengu said to him, "Here we are, let`s dance together here." He opened his eyes slowly and timidly but he was still trembling in fear. It was too awful for him to dance with tengus. But while he was watching the tengus' dancing, his body began to move and couldn't stop dancing with tengus.. They praised him, " What a good dancer you are! Let us know how to dance better." They kept dancing together. Finally the tengu told to him, "What a wonderful dancer! I will give you presents as rewards." They were some mochis(rice cakes) and cigarettes.

When Kousaku was eating the mochi , another tengu took him to a cliff and had him stand there. The tengu frightened him, " I'm going to kill you." But strangely enough Kousaku was not trembling but just standing with a smile now. "What a man! You are not frightened at all. We should not let you go home, once you saw us dancing. But we just allow you to go home." And the tengu showed him to go down the hill.

On their way back to the village, at a place called Imadate Kousaku found a tall cedar tree and cut its branch. He handed over it talking, " Please give this branch to your Greatest Tengu in the Mt. Akiba," the tengu gave a bitter smile and said to him, "You are a good man. I will give you anything you want as a present." Kousaku answered, " I want to have a big power." The tengu gave him a big power with pleasure. He went back to the village carrying a huge tree, so huge as anyone couldn't carry. To say nothing that people were very surprised to see him. He told about what he had done with tengus but nobody believed him. Then he showed them picking up a big tree just with fingers or move a big stone easily which was as heavy as no one could move. At last the people believed him.
The end

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