Momotarou

Momotarou is a short japanese childrens story about an elder couple who find a giant peach floating down a river. However, when they took the giant peach back to their house, a strange (and insanely strong) little boy came from the peach, and was then named Momotarou (momo = peach, Tarou = popular Japanese boys name) and was then sent on an adventure by his new-found parents to fight the evil demons haunting the nearby villages.

A long time ago, there was a very old, and extremely condensed Japanese cottage along the great Mokkori river, aptly named due to it having a strange looking rock jutting out from the middle of the water. Within that very old, and typical Japanese claustrophobic cottage, was a very strange, old red headed man named Ginga, and his disgustingly young wife called Dorei.
One day, Ginga realised that his wife wasn’t cutting her slack within the household, and decided to send her peach-picking, in order to dry and stock food for winter. So off went Dorei to the great Mokkori river in search for peaches, when she came across a giant peach, stuck on the odd shaped rock jutting from the middle of the river. She gathered a stick, and used it to pull it in, and when she did, she realised just how big this strange peach really was. It was atrociously large. Larger than her even, and weighed a tonne. However, with a peach this big, she also realised that she wouldn't need to find any others, as this one would be enough to last the both of them the full winter. So with that thought, she began rolling the peach down the river, over the hills, and back into the cottage.

When she arrived, Ginga was not at home. “Probably out drinking again” she thought to herself, annoyed that he never did any work around the house. With nothing else to do, and boredom setting in, Dorei thought it would be a great surprise if she began to cut the peach into smaller pieces and begin drying them. However, when she began to cut the peach, she heard a strange noise coming from the peach. Then the peach started to move, and roll around on its own. Dorei tried to hold it down best she could, but the peach just wouldn’t stay still. Eventually the peach began to split down the middle. Dorei had no idea how to react to such a strange event. Curious about this strange over-sized fruit, she tried to peak within the crack, when suddenly it burst open, and a small boy leapt out, completely naked other than a strange looking wooden sword in his hand. The boy was a strange sight indeed, and was nothing that Dorei had ever seen nor heard of in any of her husband’s long, drawn-out stories. The boy was very skinny, yet very strong, and his head was a giant peach, with strange looking eyes and a very large mouth. Dorei stood there awestruck. She didn’t know what to do. Who was this boy? What was this boy? For she knew, he could be another demon from the nearby hills, come to kidnap her and eat her as a light snack for dinner. However, this was not your typical demon, for he did not try to eat Dorei at all. Instead, he just ran across the room, and began eating all the food within the house. Once he ate everything, he began eating furniture, wooden stools, tables, he even began gnawing at the side of the house, but nothing seemed to quell his appetite. Shocked by the horror of this little boy eating her house, Dorei fainted, and didn’t get up for a very long time.

As Ginga arrived at his cottage, he noticed something very strange. It was very late, yet there was a tremendously loud noise coming from his cottage. Ginga was worried that his wife had thrown one of her many tantrums whenever he had come back home drunk. However this time he was prepared. He bought a box of the finest omochidango he could afford, which was Dorei favourite food. However, as he got closer to the house he realised just how noisy it really was. He could hear furniture being broken, tossed about, and every once and awhile, an odd noise which resembled something like a burp. As he opened the door, he entered the door, hand first with the omochidango held out, announcing “Darling, I’m hom-“ when suddenly something grabbed the omochidango, gobbled it down, and then suddenly passed out snoring. Ginga entered the cottage to find his wife had not been making all the noise and ruckus, but instead it had been a strange looking boy with a peach-shaped head. There were all manner of things all over his face. Wood splinters, food, even bits of metal from a broken pot lying next to him. Ginga had no idea what to do. His wife was still unconscious in the corner of his destroyed cottage, and the strange boy was sleeping happily in the middle of it all. However, as he tried to step over the sleeping boy, the boy suddenly leapt up onto Ginga’s shoulders, and began to speak.

“More! More!” the boy screamed. Ginga had no idea what he was talking about. “More! More!” he pronounced louder, pointing at the empty box of omochidango that the boy had gorged in less than a second. Ginga was still awestruck. “Omochidango?” he asked shakily in a barely understandable tone. “Omochidango! More! More!” the boy screamed. “I have no more..”, he replied, suddenly realising what the boy did to his pot, and what the boy could do to his head if tempted. “More omochidango!” the boy screamed, so loud this time it made Ginga twitch with fear. Suddenly, he heard another scream come from outside. However, this scream was even more terrifying. Usually, one could hear screams around this time of the night through-out the village, as the demons living in the nearby hills would snatch hapless victims, and take them back for dinner. “More omochidango!” the boy screamed louder, muffling the screams and cries coming from the village. That was when Ginga got an idea. The demons were said to be very rich and wealthy, from looting all the bodies of the people they snatched, so surely if someone could defeat those demons, all that gold and goods would be up for the taking. Ginga was not only a greedy old fart, but a cunning miser aswell. After all, he did convince Dorei to actually marry him. So with his thought, he suddenly replied with “There! In the mountains, there is a demon which has a mountain of omochidango! If you can defeat those demons, you can eat as much as possible for the rest of you-“ However, before he could finish, the boy was already collecting his giant wooden sword, tying a ripped curtain around his body, and heading out the door. “Wait!” Ginga shouted at the boy. “What is your… name?”. “Tarou.” announced the boy.. “Momotarou. More omochidango! More!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, and ran, sword first, straight for the mountain.

Ginga, deciding to see if this boy was really able of defeating the demons, then collected his walking stick, and began to follow Momotarou, keeping his distance and out of the way. Momotarou was running full speed. Even though his legs were so small, but his head so big, it was incredibly tough for poor old Ginga to follow, when suddenly Momotarou stopped in the middle of the street, looked at his feet, and began to eat some of the nuts which had fallen from the tree. This went on for a good five minutes, when suddenly the strangest looking monkey jumped from the tree onto Momotarou’s head, and began to talk. “Those are mine! Don't touch my nuts!” it shouted in a high-pitched ear shattering shriek. Momotarou didn’t stop, he continued to eat the nuts from the tree without paying any attention to the odd monkey jumping around on his head and shoulders. Once all the nuts were eaten, Momotarou stood back up, looked at the monkey sitting on his shoulder, and then began to speak. “Mountain.. omochidango… go?” confused, and still furious at the fact that this odd looking boy had just eaten his entire harvest, the monkey continued to pound his fist on Momotarou’s face, but didn’t get a flinch, not even a twitch from him. Eventually, the monkey replied, “There are mochidango in that mountain?” and with that, Momotarou replied with a quick nod, and a wave of his giant sword. It was hard to believe, the mountains were said to be haunted by the three nastiest demons he had ever heard of, however the monkey could not just give up and starve to death, and this monkey knew exactly how great omochidango tasted, so he pronounced to Momotarou. “You ate my entire harvest! You must pay me back! So I will go to this mountain, as long as you promise to give me half of your Omochidango.” With that, Momotarou nodded, scrunched his face up in some kind of blood-raged manner, raised his giant wooden sword, and continued to run straight ahead toward the mountain at full speed yet again.

Ginga could barely see anything other than what the moon light could illuminate. However, they were currently walking through the woods, and it was still getting darker and darker by the second. However, determined to grab his share on the demons treasure before anyone else realised they had disappeared, he pressed forward, tripping over twigs, roots, and banging his head on many of the low branches, when suddenly he heard a familiar sound. He squinted around, trying to see as much as possible, when he noticed Momotarou hugging an incredibly large tree. At first, it appeared as if Momotarou and the monkey were sleeping vertically on the tree trunk, when Ginga then realised that he wasn’t just hugging the tree, he was gnawing it. Grinding with his teeth, he was cutting off bark and gobbling it down as if it was his last meal. Shocked by the damage the tree had sustained in what must have only been an hour or so, the tree began to tilt, and eventually Momotarou had eaten right through the trunk, and the giant tree came crashing down with a thunderous sound. That was when a small bird flew down onto the top of Momotarou’s head, and began to peck at his face. “You destroyed my house! You destroyed my house!” the bird tweeted in a surprisingly beautiful voice. “My Ma, My Pa, My family were in there! And you destroyed my house! Even my Grandpa, who was getting better from the bird flu was within that house, and you destroyed it!” Pecking viciously at Momotarou’s face, the bird continued its relentless rant, but to no effect. Momotarou just sat there, stilling gnawing at the trunk with his insanely large face covered in even more splinters than before. Eventually the bird jumped off of Momotarou’s head, and perched itself onto the other shoulder. Suddenly monkey replied softly “He also destroyed my harvest.. He busted my nuts…” he said still down, and also feeling a bit hungry after seeing Momotarou feed his face. The bird didn’t reply, still weeping, and barely able to believe what had just transpired this night. “We are going to the mountain.” Monkey said after a short while. “Omochidango!” Momotarou screamed, and stood up shockingly fast. “The strange peach claims there is omochidango in the mountains there.” Suddenly the bird looked up. “The mountains? You are going to those mountains?” With a slight nod, and even a little grunt from Momotarou, the bird began to stare at the mountain. “My wife went to those mountains yesterday to find some more medicine for Grandpa, but she still hasn’t returned. I’ve wanted to go and check it out, but everyone knows not to go there. No matter how good the harvest is, it’s an incredibly dangerous place.” Momotarou looked at the bird. “Mountain, go?” he replied in his peachy broken English. However, before he even got a reply from the bird, Momotarou started off toward the mountain once again.

As they reached the mountain, the moon was completely covered by the low dark clouds swarming the sky. The place gave Ginga a chill to his bone he would never forget. He could see all manner of weird and strange things around the end of the mountain. Every now and then he would see a hat, or a shoe. He even once stepped on something which replied with a sickening crunch, and prayed it wasn’t a bone of one of his long-lost friends that had been rumoured to disappear around here. As he climbed the mountain, keeping his distance from Momotarou, he could already see the enormously gaping cave entrance to the demons household. However, he could also see that the entrance was barred with a giant metal door, which must have been hard for even the strongest of demons to push open. It was around this time that Ginga realised how much danger he was in just being around these parts. However, his lust for gold and glory pushed him onward, onward to the great looming door which even Momotarou couldn’t get through.

Momotarou tried to gnaw at the door to no effect, no matter how hard he bit or ground the door with his teeth, he couldn’t even make a scratch. On top of that, it tasted terrible to even him. Suddenly the bird sang, “I can see a small window up there, shall I fly up and take a look for another way in?” Momotarou and the monkey nodded with anticipation, as the bird began to fly from its perch on Momotarou’s shoulder, and up, into the small window above the door. As the bird peeked in, he could see three giant red demons sitting around a small fire. They were exchanging crude comments and grunts to one another, and sitting atop an incredibly large pile of gold, jewellery, and other shiny miscellaneous objects. The bird perched onto the window sill, and scanned the nearby area for another way in, when suddenly he saw his wife, locked in a cage right below him next to the door. He flew down as fast as possible to meet with his beloved, and began to sing to her. They exchanged various squeeks and tweets to one another, none of which are translatable in any available language. Eventually, he unlocked the latch and opened the door to his wives cage, and together they flew back out of the small window. The couple then perched onto Momotarou’s head and announced the secret passage just around the mountain, hidden by a large boulder. So with this new information, the birds said their farewells, and headed off to find a new home.

To be continued....