In what are now ancient times, there was a man named Yorikiyo who was
then Minister of Popular Affairs.  He was in faithful service to the Empress,
but had fallen from favor, and as he had land away from the capitol in a place
called Kowata, he went there for a while.
	Now there was a woman that Yorikiyo kept as a housemaid.  She was
called the maidservant Mikawa.  She had been in his employ for many years, but
as she lived in the capital, when her master fell from favor she was given a
short leave and returned home for a while.  There she found that a Yorikiyo had
sent a man who was obviously a stranger to the city for her with a message. 
"We must make great haste," he said, "Come now, our master who was in Kowata
has been summoned for a special duty.  He stays at the house of a person in
Yamashiro.  Come quickly!"  And so the maid hugged her five year-old child to
her and hurried out.  
	Upon her arrival at the house in Yamashiro, Yorikiyo's wife gave her
food to eat and welcomed her more kindly than usual it seemed.  And as the wife
was rather hurriedly hanging some dyed cloth up to dry, the maidservant went to
help her, and so passed four or five days.
	After a short while, the master's wife said to the maid, "In our place
back in Kowata, we left a helper to watch over the gardens.  Go there quietly,
and tell him that there is something we need done."  The woman said "I
understand", and leaving her child with another maidservant, she departed for
Kowata. 
	When she reached the Kowata house, and made to enter, she thought
"There will surely be no-one here, it will be quiet and lonely."  But to the
contrary it was lively and bright!  There she saw her companions she had just
left at the other house in Yamashiro.  Becoming quite troubled, she entered
further in, and there was her master!  "Was Yamashiro all a dream?" she
thought, and the people sitting there said "Why how strange!  It's the
maidservant.  Why haven't you come until now?  Our master was forgiven by the
empress, but when we sent someone to tell you, your neighbor said that you had
gone to master's house two or three days before.  When he returned, you were
not here either!"  At this the maid became very disturbed and frightened. 
Standing there trembling she said "but.... but..." and the people there,
especially the master were quite angry with her, but there were also those who
laughed.  
	But the maidservant could think only of her child whom she had left
there.  In a haze she thought, "Surely he is gone now".  And so the people said
"let's send someone to look".  Then many people were sent, and with them the
maid went to the place where the house should have been, but there she saw
nothing but a wide grassy field.  The grasses were very high, and there was no
trace of humankind anywhere.  With a trembling heart, she ran about, searching
for her child, and there she found that child, all alone in the middle of the
thick grasses and reeds, crying.  Joyously the maid picked up her child and
returned to Kowata and told all there what had happened.  Hearing her, the
master said "it is but thine wild fantasy!"  And the other servants also found
it most suspicious.  But what would bring a mother to leave her child so in the
fields?  
	Considering this, it would seem to be the doing of foxes.  "Were it so,
why did she not lose her child?" the people asked loudly.  And so are the tales
told of such strange happenings as this.