The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter (竹取物語, Taketori Monogatari?), also known as Princess Kaguya (かぐや姫, Kaguya Hime?, 赫映姫), is a 10th century Japanese folktale. It is considered the oldest existent Japanese narrative and an early example of proto-science fiction. Specifically, it is among the first texts of any culture to imagine that the Moon is an inhabited world and describe travel between it and the Earth.
It primarily details the life of a mysterious girl called Kaguya-hime, who was discovered as a baby inside the stalk of a glowing bamboo plant. She is said to be from Tsuki-no-Miyako (月の都 "The Capital of the Moon") and has unusual hair that shines with a light like the moon.
Read more about The Tale Of The Bamboo Cutter: Narrative, Literary Connections, Adaptations
Famous quotes containing the words tale and/or bamboo:
“In the tale, in the telling, we are all one blood. Take the tale in your teeth, then, and bite till the blood runs, hoping it’s not poison; and we will all come to the end together, and even to the beginning: living, as we do, in the middle.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)
“One bamboo does not make a raft.”
—Chinese proverb.