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Measures should be taken at once, it was unanimously decided. It would be to their Prince’s everlasting disgrace should the exalted foreign devil also become a victim of the dreaded Fox-Woman of Atago Yama, for, undoubtedly, this mischievous and irrepressible sprite of the mountains was at her tricks again. In the names, therefore, of the august Tojin-san, nay, in the very name of the Imperial Daimio of Echizen, it was the duty of the honorable samourai to spare in no wise the witch should she be caught trespassing upon the estate of the Prince’s guest and protégé.

They fell to telling weird tales of the latest doings of the fox-woman. A Tsuruga child had followed the witch-girl into the mountains, believing her glittering hair to be the rays of the sun, and stretching out his tiny hands to touch and hold it. To propitiate the dread creature, the parents had set out daily food at the foot of the mountains, and thus, for a time at least, the hunger of the fox-woman had been satisfied, but the child had never been the same again, fretting and crying constantly for the “Sun Lady.” As its peevishness continued, the parents revenged themselves upon its abductor, and ceased to set out the nightly repast, bravely facing down their fear of the witch’s certain anger and retaliation.