Japanese Rabbit in the Moon
Tony Jones (LHL0047@UABDPO.DPO.UAB.EDU)
Mon, 28 Aug 1995 16:03:09 CDT
Okay folks, I hate to spam, but this is the best email message
I've ever composed. I posted it in April, & am pridefully
posting it again before sending it to Silicon Heaven (ie.,
deleting it from Mailbook). Sorry again to those who don't like
to read things twice (*although* I'm not sure this message
ever even got through: seems like FC was having systems
problems at the time). Anyway, here it is. Tony
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Here's the Japanese Rabbit in the Moon myth, as my wife, who's
Japanese, told it to me this morning at breakfast, when I asked:
Monkey, Fox, & Rabbit were sitting around the fire which Rabbit had made
one brisk evening. A beggar wandered up, asking for anything they could spare.
Monkey offered fruit he had gathered. Fox offered fish he had gotten in the
stream. Monkey & Fox thought that Rabbit would offer a place at the fire he
had made, since men can't eat rabbit food (grasses, etc.)
Rabbit, though, thought, Oh no, the fire isn't enough, my food isn't enough,
I'm a bad host!" So Rabbit jumps in the fire, saying, "Eat me, when I'm fully
cooked, oh stranger!"
Of course, the beggar was a deity, who was so impressed by Rabbit's sense of
duty that he took Rabbit to the moon to be one of his attendants there.
That's why Rabbit is in the Moon.
Tony
PS. Some see a political allegory in this, in which the old wanderer is
the Imperial Family, whom all Japanese should be happy to jump in the fire
for. I'm not so sure, but it may explain the rabbits on the helmets someone
posted about, earlier.