In what are now ancient times, There was a villager of Konye called
Harima-no-Yasutaka.  He was the child of the third ranking Right Minister
Sadamasa, and an attendant of the Hokon temple.  When he was still young, his
lord was in the imperial palace, and so though his home was in the western
capital, Yasutaka too was in service at the palace.  Once, not seeing any other
attendants about, he set out walking all alone on the inner courtyard road,
thinking he would go to western capital home.  It being the twentieth of the
month, the moon was shining brightly as the night grew deeper.  He entered the
pine stand to the west of the palace, and there stood a young girl wearing a
deep purple akome, and layers of a lighter purple weave.  The sight of her was
indescribable -- she was exquisite in the moonlight.  Yasutaka was wearing long
boots, and making a pit-pat sound he walked up alongside the girl.  As he
approached, she opened a painted fan and with it hid her face, not allowing him
a clear view.  The wayward strands of her hair falling on her cheeks and
forehead were adorable beyond description.
	Yasutaka came closer, and gently laid his hand on her, causing the
smell of incence to rise from her garment.  "Who are you, and how is it that
you came to be here in this dark night?" Yasutaka asked, and the girl replied
"I was summoned to the western capitol."  Yasutaka then said "instead of going
to off somewhere like that, why not come with me to my place?" Upon which the
girl replied in a laughing voice, which Yasutaka found extremely attractive,
"even though I do not know you?"  So they went on conversing in this way, as
they walked out of the palace grounds through the outer gate.  
	The Yasutaka remembered hearing rumors about a fox who assumed human
form inside the palace environs.  "Perhaps she was it?" he thought.  "I shall
try to frighten her, after all it is very suspicious her not showing her face
and all."  So thinking, he grabbed the woman's sleeve and spoke to her saying
"stay here a moment, there is something I must ask of you."  The girl took her
fan and shyly hid her face, and seeing this, Yasutaka said "take off these
clothes, for really, I am a bandit!"  And saying this, he unfastened his shirt,
baring himself to the waist and drew a long knife, about eight sun* in length. 
Brandishing the knife at the woman he threatened, "I'll cut your throat." 
"Give me these clothes" he said, grabbing her hari and pushing her up to a
post.  But when he put the knife to her neck, the woman passed unspeakably rank
urine all around her.  Yasutaka was startled and let her go, whereupon the
woman turned into a fox, and ran out from under the gate, calling "kon! kon!"
and so she dissapeared up the Omiya road.  When Yasutaka saw this, he thought
because I believed her to be a young woman, I didn't kill her.  "If I only had
known, I certainly would have killed her," he thought with great remorse, but
by then it was too late.
	Afterwards, dusk or dawn, Yasutaka often ventured out onto the inner
court road, but it seemed the fox had learned its lesson for he never met with
it again.  The fox had turned into a woman trying to [lure?] Yasutaka, and had
nearly met its death by doing so.  Therefore, if you are walking out late at
night in a field far from other people, and you see a beautiful woman, it is
best to simply walk right by.  
	Yasutaka considered this deeply, and from then on was never touched by
the lure of a woman, and so the story is told.