The Thunder's Kid
Japanese
Long, long ago, when a farmer was hoeing his field, it suddenly got dark in the sky and began raining cats and dogs.
"Dear God, dear Buddha, please help me!"
He ran and got under a big tree nearby that offered perfect shelter from the rain. The thunders started rumbling with a bolt of lightning, when something fell down before him. He unconsciously closed his eyes. When he opened them timidly, he found a strange boy lying in front of him.
"Who are you? You are a thunder, aren't you?" He tried to poke in the boy's face with his hoe.
"Don't kill me, please! I'm a thunder's son. I slipped down from the clouds," the boy begged him and added, "If you save my life, I'll repay your thoughtfulness."
"Repay me? What on earth can you do for me?"
"I can answer any of your wish."
"Really? That's nice! I've wanted a child for a long time. After ten years of marriage, we still don't have a child. If you promise to give us a child, I'll save your life."
"I promise you that I'll give you a child without fail. Oh, I've escaped being killed. Well, I must go back and ask my father to do so. Now stay back from me. If you stand near me, you'll be killed with lightning."
The thunder kid raised his hand toward the sky for a signal. When a streak of lightning struck, he quickly grabbed it and then vanished into the dark clouds in an instant.
After a while, his wife gave birth to a healthy baby-boy.
Ten years had passed and he became a gentle but powerful boy. It was said there was a man of great strength in the capital. When he heard the rumor, he said to his parents,
"It's time to leave home. I'd like to measure my strength against some powerful man in the capital. I'll do my best to make myself useful to people."
Deep as the sorrow of his parents was, they said farewell to him. At first, the boy visited the powerful man and asked him to have a contest of power,
"I heard you are the most powerful man in the capital. But I think I'm much more powerful than you are. Why not have a contest of power with me?"
The man burst into laughter and said to the ten-year-old boy,
"What a funny boy you are! You don't know how strong I am. I'll put you in your place. Can you lift that huge stone over there in the garden?"
"Of course, it's easy for me." He jumped down on the garden and lifted it so easily.
The man turned pale and said,
"Bravo! Can you defeat me in an arm wrestling contest with me?"
"Of course, it's so easy."
As soon as the boy put his hand together with the man's, he defeated him in an instant.
The man turned red with anger and cried,
"I'm now serious. How far can you throw that huge stone, which you lifted a few minutes ago?"
The man went up to the stone and lifted with both hands and threw it 10 meters away in the garden.
"Can you throw it farther than I just did?"
"Of course, it's so easy."
The boy ran to the stone and lifted it in one hand and threw it back, which crossed over the house and fell down 30 meters away in a field.
The man was speechless for a while with shock. "You.. are...much more powerful than I am."
He couldn't help but admit the boy's power. The boy became famous in the capital.
After that he went to Aska( Nara Prefecture, the former capital before Kyoto) and worked at a famous temple there.
Once, there happened an incident in which the priests who rang the bell early in the morning were killed one after another.
The boy said to the chief priest,
"I'll find out who the murderer is."
As he had already been known as a powerful boy in the capital, the priest entrusted the task to the boy. He sat under the bell and waited for the murderer to appear all night.
Before dawn he felt something coming nearer to him.
"Here it comes!"
It was an ogre who lived in the mountain. He caught the hair of the ogre and pulled it with all his might. The ogre had all of its hair pulled off and ran away into the mountain. It never appeared and no priests were killed after that.
He became one of the disciples of the chief priest at the temple.
One summer, they had a long drought and rice fields in the village had been dried up for several days. The powerful disciple carried a huge rock from the mountain and put it in the river to divide the flow of it and irrigate the fields. The villagers on the other side of the river strongly opposed the sudden existence of the rock.
"We'll have less water in our village than before."
About 50 men of the village lifted the rock and got rid of it. Then the young disciple put a gigantic rock in the river on the next day. About 100 people of the other side of the river tried to lift the rock, which was impossible.
"What tremendous power that boy has!" they sighed and gave up moving it.
The rice fields in his village were filled with water and they had good crops that fall.
"It's all thanks to you."
All the villagers were much pleased and really appreciated his achievement.
Several years later, he succeeded as the chief priest at the temple and was named 'Dozyo Priest'. In later ages, he was known as a wise priest as well as a priest of great strength at the Gankoji Temple . (2013/8/1 With Itaya)
