Long, long ago, on Mount Ashigara, there lived a sturdy little boy named Kintaro.
Kintaro was big for his age, and he was tremendously strong.
Kintaro was friends with all the animals of the mountain.
Every day he played together with the bears, the monkeys, and the rabbits.
He loved sumo, too, and often wrestled with the bears.
Kintaro always won.
One day, Kintaro went deep into the mountains with the animals.
But there was no bridge across the river.
Kintaro pushed a great tree until it toppled over.
The tree became a bridge.
And so everyone was able to cross the river.
Just then, a great samurai was watching Kintaro.
The samurai said, "What a strong child you are. Won't you come with me to the capital?"
Kintaro said "I'm off, then" to his mother and to the animals, and set out for the capital.
Kintaro studied with all his might and grew into a splendid samurai.
And he took a mighty new name as well: Sakata no Kintoki.
Tap a word in the text to see its meaning. Tip: characters are not marked wrong while the IME conversion is still pending. To fix an earlier line: clear the current one, then press Backspace again to step back.