The wolf's cunning and friendship. Fairy Tale

Between Minabe and Akita, there is a small village. This village has been home to hunters who have made a living by hunting the wildlife of the mountains since ancient times. However, the residents of this village were known for their narrow-mindedness, rarely offering hospitality to travelers descending from the mountains. One winter evening, during a snowstorm that followed an early morning snowfall, a woman accompanied by her daughter, who was a jiyukurei (a person devoted to religious worship), arrives in this village.

She knocks on each door, pleading to be allowed to spend the night during the blizzard, but the cruel hunters remain indifferent. "Is there at least a nook that could provide shelter for my child?" she begs, but no one pays her any mind. Shivering from the cold, the two of them stumble through the deep snow to the edge of the village and knock on the door of the last house. A woman emerges from inside:

— I would host you, but my husband does not welcome strangers. If you keep going, you will come across the Ryuunji temple. You might find shelter there, — she directs them. The girl and her mother struggle through the thick snow and finally reach the temple. When they knock on the temple door, the jushiyoku (the chief priest of the Buddhist temple) responds harshly: "There is no place for people like you to spend the night." The woman devoted to her faith continues to stand trembling under the temple roof, holding her daughter close. Inside the temple, the jushiyoku peeks out from the door, muttering, "They will probably be eaten by wolves tonight." The howling of wolves can be distinctly heard in the snow-covered village.

The howling is heard from near the Ryuunji temple. Meanwhile, the jushiyoku, wrapped in a blanket inside the warm kuri (temple kitchen), thinks to himself, "The wolf has come; it will soon attack them." However, he does not consider letting the woman and her daughter into the temple for shelter. When morning comes and the blizzard subsides, the jushiyoku wakes up and looks out at the tent where the woman and her daughter had been trembling through the night. They are both gone. An old umbrella lies in the corner. The jushiyoku concludes that the wolves must have devoured the woman and her daughter without leaving a trace. A few days later, the jushiyoku attends a funeral in a neighboring village. On his way back, it gets dark, and he has to walk through the mountains.

As he walks, he hears the howling of wolves behind him. Terrified, he starts to run. But soon he has to stop. A wolf stands in front of him. The jushiyoku finds himself surrounded, not by one wolf, but by a pack of sixty-four wolves. The next day, the villagers find the jushiyoku's body, torn to shreds in the snow. After that, any villager who ventured into the mountains would be attacked by wolves. Once, a wolf entered the last house on the edge of the village through the window and killed the entire family. "What have we done to deserve the wolves' wrath against the whole village? What is this punishment?" lamented the elders. Yet no one remembered how they had turned away and chased off the devout worshippers. As the people worried that if this continued, the entire village could fall prey to wolves, a hunter named Kumahai suggested that all the wolves in the mountains should be exterminated. He was known as an excellent marksman in the region.

Kumahai sets out into the mountains with his weapon. He climbs a tree near the wolf den, waiting for the wolves to appear. Soon, one after another, sixty-four wolves emerge from the den. The waiting hunter pulls the trigger, but the shot goes wide. The wolves begin to surround the tree. At that moment, a girl suddenly runs out of the den and shouts:

— Get inside the den quickly while the hunter's aim is off! — she cries out. At that moment, the wolves calm down and retreat back into the den, following their tracks. Kumahai, astonished, returns to the village and says:

— Hey, everyone, there’s a girl living in the den with the wolves! — he reports what he has seen. That night, while the villagers were asleep, sixty-four wolves attacked the village. People were thrown into chaos as if in a war. Hunters rushed outside with whatever weapons they could find, while those who were attacked by the wolves created pandemonium in the village.

At that moment, a voice from the mountains calls, "Come back, come back." The girl from the den runs towards the village. One of the hunters takes aim at the girl and shoots her. She screams and falls. The sixty-four wolves intensify their assault. They tear apart the hunter who shot the girl, along with five or six other villagers. The villagers have no power to resist the wolves. The pack howls at the moon. This is their lament for the girl. The wolf that bit into the girl's body runs off towards the mountains. After that, the wolves in the mountains began to howl with an even more mournful sound. The sorrowful howl of the wolves sent chills down the spines of the villagers. Only then did they realize that they had driven away the girl, who was seeking refuge from the storm, and that the wolves had offered her shelter.

Since then, wolves have not approached this village. However, the mournful howls of the sixty-four wolves echo throughout the mountains. There is a pass on the road from Iwate Prefecture to Akita Prefecture. At that pass, one can see six stone statues of wolves. It is said that they turned to stone while lamenting the girl. On the seventeenth night of the new year, these six stone statues howl towards the sky.