The Tengu's Fan

It was a warm spring day. Heisaku went to the mountains to cut some hay for himself.
The sun was gently warming, and lazy Heisaku felt like taking a break and warming his back. He sat down on a tree stump, began to gaze at the high blue sky, and listened to the chirping of sparrows. He listened and listened and completely forgot about his work. And when he got tired of sitting, he took out some dice from his pocket and started tossing them. The dice fell on a large flat stone that lay nearby by the stump, and Heisaku chanted:

"Dice, dice, fall, dice, white dice."
Suddenly, from behind, from a tall pine tree, a thin little voice was heard:
"Heisaku, what are you doing?"
Heisaku got scared. He looked around and saw right in front of him, on a pine branch, a long-nosed goblin—a Tengu, a real Tengu, just like the ones in the pictures:

A long nose sticking up above his head, and a fan in his hand.
Heisaku fell to his knees, trembled, and began to cry:
"Spare me, Tengu, don't harm me!"
"Don't be afraid!" the Tengu said kindly. "I'm not going to kill you. I just want to know what you're tossing and why you're muttering those words? What's in your hands?"

"This? These are dice. You see, this way it's one point, and this way it's two. It could be three, four, or even six. You can win a lot of money with dice."

The Tengu didn't understand, but he still thought the dice were an amusing thing. And he really wanted to have them.

"Heisaku, give me your dice."
But Heisaku refused:
"How can I give you my dice? That would be like giving away my head."
The long-nosed Tengu wanted the dice even more.
"I'm not asking for them for free! I'll give you something very good in return," he said as kindly as possible.

"What will you give me?"
"Here's what."
And the Tengu showed him the fan he held in his hand.
"That's it? What do I need such a tattered fan for?"
"What! You don't know what a Tengu's fan is? Let me explain. If you tap the painted side of the fan and say three times: 'Nose, grow! Nose, grow! Nose, grow!'—then the tip of your nose, or someone else's, will start growing upward. If you want the nose to grow even higher, tap harder. If you want it to grow slowly, tap softly. And if you want the nose to shrink back, you can do that too: just tap the other side of the fan and say three times: 'Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink!'—and the nose will gradually get smaller. See what a remarkable thing this Tengu's fan is. Well, do you believe me or not? Or else I'll stretch your flat nose right now, higher than your head."

Heisaku got scared and covered his nose with his hand:
"I believe, I believe! Have mercy! Spare me! How could I live with such a long nose!"
"Well then, let's trade. Here's the fan, and I'll take your dice."
"Alright," Heisaku replied. He was very pleased but pretended to obey the Tengu only out of fear.

Heisaku gave the Tengu his old, cracked dice, received the magic fan in return, and, satisfied, headed home.

...Lazy Heisaku walked along the road and thought: "Who should I try the magic fan on?"

Suddenly, he saw a grand procession: four servants were carrying a beautiful woman on bamboo stretchers under a silk canopy, and a whole crowd of servants and maids surrounded her from the front, back, right, and left.

This beauty was the daughter of the richest lord in the region.
"Let me try stretching her nose! That would be funny!" Heisaku thought.

He quietly blended into the crowd of servants, made his way to the stretchers, gently tapped the painted side of the fan, and whispered three times:

"Nose, grow! Nose, grow! Nose, grow!"
And so, the beauty's nose slightly curved, then began to stretch upward—growing an inch, then two, then three. Heisaku got so scared that he quickly ran home.

Two or three days later, rumors spread everywhere that the lord's daughter had fallen ill with an unprecedented disease: the tip of her nose had grown upward, and she now resembled a Tengu. Neither the doctors' medicines, nor the monks' prayers, nor the healers' spells—nothing helped her. The poor beauty locked herself in her castle, covered her face with a wide sleeve, and cried all day. And her parents were beside themselves with grief.

Finally, a large notice was posted at the gates of the lord's castle:
"WHOEVER CURES THE PRINCESS OF THIS UNPRECEDENTED ILLNESS WILL RECEIVE HER HAND IN MARRIAGE."
When lazy Heisaku saw this notice, he immediately ran home, grabbed his magic fan, and hurried to the castle.

"I can cure the princess!" Heisaku said as soon as he was let into the castle.

The servants led him to the princess's chambers. Heisaku bowed low to the beauty, then tapped the other side of the fan and whispered three times:

"Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink!"
And immediately, the princess's nose began to shrink—first by an inch, then two, then three. The tip straightened, and her nose became as beautiful as before. And the princess herself became even more beautiful than she had been.

There was nothing to be done; she had to marry Heisaku.
And so, with the help of the Tengu's magic fan, lazy Heisaku became the richest man in the village. He could now eat as many grilled eels with white rice as he wanted, laze in bed all day, or wander the mountains—and most importantly, do nothing. That's how he lived. One day he would eat to his heart's content, the next he would sleep without waking, the third he would roam his estate, and then start over.

But soon he got bored of all this; doing nothing was very dull.
One day, Heisaku was lying in the garden and yawning out of boredom. To amuse himself, he pulled out his fan, looked at it, and thought:

"How far can my own nose stretch?" And suddenly, he felt much cheerier. He sat up, tapped the fan, and said three times:

"Nose, grow! Nose, grow! Nose, grow!"
Immediately, the tip of Heisaku's nose curved upward and began to grow. It grew an inch, then two, then three. Heisaku tapped again. The nose grew six inches, then a foot, then two feet, then three. It grew taller than the house, taller than the tallest tree. It stretched so high that Heisaku couldn't even see the tip from below. Heisaku was thoroughly amused. He drummed on the fan with all his might. The nose stretched and stretched, growing above the clouds, reaching the sky, and piercing right through it.

Meanwhile, up in the sky, Thunder was sitting. Suddenly, he saw something thin, red, and sharp piercing the sky and climbing upward. Thunder was surprised.

"It looks like a carrot. But I've never seen a carrot grow in the sky, and with the tip pointing up!" Thunder thought.

And he firmly grabbed the carrot with his massive hand.
"Ow!" Heisaku cried out down on the ground.
Though the tip of his nose was far away, it was still the tip of his own nose, and poor Heisaku felt the pain. He quickly flipped the fan, drummed on the other side, and chanted rapidly:

"Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink! Nose, shrink!"
And indeed, the nose began to shrink—an inch, then two, then three.
But Thunder held the tip of the nose tightly in his hand, and Thunder, of course, was stronger than Heisaku. The nose grew smaller and smaller, but the tip remained in the sky. And since the tip couldn't come down from the sky to the ground, Heisaku himself had to rise from the ground to the sky. First, he had to stand on his tiptoes, then lift off the ground entirely. The smaller the nose became, the higher Heisaku rose. He was lifted above the house, above the tallest tree in the garden, above the clouds, and finally pulled right up to the sky. But the hole he had pierced with his nose was so small that Heisaku couldn't squeeze through it. And so, he was left hanging on the tip of his own nose, just below the sky.

And he's been hanging there ever since.

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The Tengu's Fan

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