Long, long ago there were two girls, an older sister and a younger sister. The mother of Komebukuro, the older sister, was dead, and the mother of Awabukuro, the younger sister, was the new mother. The stepmother hated Komebukuro and abused her.
One day when the two sisters went with the village girls to gather chestnuts in the mountains, the older sister was given an old straw bag with a rotten bottom, and the younger sister was given a new straw bag. By evening all the other girls had filled their bags and wanted to start home, but Komebukuro’s bag could never be filled because the bottom had come off.
All of her friends went home, leaving Komebukuro alone in the mountains. She was so hungry that she climbed down to a little stream to drink water. While she did this, a beautiful little white bird came flying toward her.
“Dear girl, I used to be your mother,” it said. “You are gentle hearted and obey your present mother well. As a reward, I will give you this padded silk dress. Keep it hidden in the ground until something special happens, and then wear it as your best dress.”
With the dress she also bestowed upon Komebukuro a flute made of hollyhock and a new straw bag. The girl soon filled the new bag to the brim and went back home in the night.
Four or five days after this there was a festival in a neighboring village. The stepmother dressed Awabukuro in a good dress and set out with her to see it.
When Komebukuro had said that she wanted to go, too, the stepmother said, “After you have spun three skeins of flax, you may come.”
A crowd of Komebukuro’s friends called for her while she was spinning the flax as fast as she could.
“My mother said that I had to do this work and I cannot go.” she said.
Her friends felt sorry for her, and because they all helped, she finished her task much sooner than she had thought. Then she took out the silk dress which she had received from the little white bird. She put in on and set out looking quite beautiful with her friends.
As she went along the road blowing the hollyhock flute, the tune seemed to say,
“Whoever hears this little flute,
Birds in flight across the sky,
Rest your wings and listen;
Worms which crawl upon the ground,
Halt your feet and listen.”
When they reached the shrine in the neighboring village to worship, they saw Awabukuro and her mother looking at the dancing dolls. Komebukuro peeled off the covering of a manjū and tossed it lightly at her younger sister, landing it on her cheek.
“Why, big sister threw a manjū covering at me from over there,” she said.
The mother would not believe her. She said, “I made Komebukuro do work. How could she possibly be here by now?”
When the younger sister was looking the other way, after a little while Komebukuro tried throwing a strip of bamboo husk which had been wrapped around a piece of ame at her sister.
This, too, the younger sister told her mother.
“That is only somebody who looks like her,” said her mother. “When somebody throws things at you, just turn away.”
Presently it looked as though the mother and the younger sister were going to start home, so Komebukuro hurried back ahead of them. Changing her clothes, she looked as though nothing had happened.
On the next day somebody who said he wanted to marry Komebukuro came from the next village. The stepmother wanted him to marry Awabukuro instead. At last he decided that he would compare their looks and choose the one who was the prettier.
“What shall I put on my hair?” asked the younger sister while they were getting dressed.
The mother said to her, “Get the oil from the shelf and try rubbing it on.”
When the older sister asked what she should use, the mother replied, “I don’t care if you use the water from the kitchen.”
The comb kept catching and snapping in the knots of Awabukuro’s hair, which was kinky.
Her mother said, “It sounds just like the music of the koto or shamisen when it is plucked.”
Komebukuro’s hair was thick and smooth and the comb slipped through it easily.
The stepmother said with a sneer. “It sounds exactly like a foul snake gliding into its hole.”
For all this, when their hair was combed, anyone could see that the older sister was far more beautiful, and Komebukuro was the one taken as a bride.
The younger sister was so jealous that she couldn’t stand it. She teased her mother and said, “I want to ride right away in a beautiful sedan chair like that as a bride.”
Nothing else would satisfy her, so the mother put Awabukuro onto a cart. Pulling it around, the mother called out at the top of her voice, “Anyone want a bride? Anyone want a bride?”
The cart tipped over and the girl fell into the rice paddy below, where she turned into a mud-snail. The bad stepmother fell into the water above the dam and turned into a sluice shellfish.
— Kunihiko Uchida, Tsugaru Kōhi Shū, p. 21
(Nanatsuishi, Ajigasawa-machi, Nishitsugaru-gun,
Aomori)