FOR THE LITTLE ONES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 78, 2 April 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

FOR THE LITTLE ONES

THE STOLEN BELL. A TALE FROM OLD JAPAN. My Dear Little Friends, — In the cartoon the other evening we saw Mr. Jiggs seize an alarm clock and throw it across the street into another man's bedroom, where its incessant ringing caused much concern to the poor gentleman and his family and gave us quite a laughable episode. No doubt we have all wanted to tnk'2 up an'alarm clock and throw it and its wrotched bell out of the v: sn it has av/r.lte~~d. us on a cold winter's morning. There are'times, too, when we wish thfit we could unhook the school bell in orebr that it would bo unable to summon us to lessons. I don't suppose that any of you have ever wanted to run off with a church bell, yet that is exactly; wha: a Japanese monk did many hundreds of years ago. This man, whose name was Benkei, lived in a monastery where the monks were not particularly honest. He was undoubtedly the strongest man in Japan, and it was said that, except for Hercules, he was the strongest man in the world. The life of a monk was not exciting enough for Benkei and so he used to dress secretly in black armour, go to a narrow gorge and challenge all who came that way to a fight. He collected the swords of all those whom he conquered, and he had nearly a thousand before Yoshitsune, another hero of that country, came and defeated him. In hir early days at the monastery, Benkei heard of a temple which possessed a very fine and large bell, which he determined to obtain. One night he set out for Miidera, where the temple was situated, and stole the bell. He carried it all ihe way back to his own monastery, then woke the other monks. They were greatly delighted and rang the bell softly. To their great surprise the bell did not give out a gentle note, but seemed to say, "I want to go back to Miidera." Although the monks knew that the bell had been stolen, they thought that they would keep it, believing that if they treated it nicely and p.aised it loudly that it would soon get used to its new home. Not once, however, did the bell ring properly; always it seemed to mean, "I want to go,back to Miidera," and at last Benkei became so angry that he took ud a bar of iron and dealt the bell a terrific blow, thinking he would break it "and silence the complaining voice for ever. But the bell did not break. Instead it roared out, "I want to go back to Miidera." So furious did the strong man become at this that he unhooked the bell, carried it outside, and with a tremendous kick, set it rolling down the hill on the top of which the monastery was built. The bell bounded joyously down the hill, then up the next and down again until eventually it reached Miidera and came to a halt outside its own temple. The good monks welcomed it back and hung it again in its own belfry, where it never again spoke anything else but ,

bell language,

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As for Benkei, he ended his day by faithfully serving Yoshitsune, whose squire he became after his defeat in the narrow gorge. KJ — IHMmil I ■