The childhood of Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫の生ひ立ち, excerpt)

Once upon a time, there was an old man who was a bamboo cutter. He entered deep into the fields and hills to cut bamboos day after day, which he used to make various things. His name was, in sooth, called Sakaki no Miyatsuko. And among the bamboos, there was one with a shining stem, indeed! He found it peculiar and came closer to take a look at it, and saw that the inside of the bamboo was shining. He saw a person of about only three inches, who was sitting very adorably. “I know it because she sits in the bamboos, which I look at day and night. It seems that she should become – not my basket – but my child”, the old man said, and placed her into his hand and brought her back home. He had his wife care for her. How extraordinarily adorable she is! Because she was very little, they raised her in a basket.

The old man was cutting bamboos, but in addition to that, after finding this child, it happened many times that while cutting bamboos, he found bamboos which had gold in the hollow spaces between the joints. In this way, the old man gradually became wealthy.

As they raised this child, she grew healthily without stopping. After just about three months, when she had grown to a fair size, they made various arrangements for her kamiage (coming-of-age ceremony) and such, and had her hair put up and clothes dressed. They did not let her go outside the bed curtain, raising her painstakingly. There was nothing in the world like the purity and beauty of the child; there was no dark corner in the room, and it was filled with light. When the old man felt ill or distressing, the pain went away and the anger settled down when he looked at the child.