狸のお祭り
On a moonlit night, raccoon dogs hold a festival at a village shrine.
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Sample: three-line reading
Each word has its meaning in this sentence underneath, and each sentence has a full translation. Read the original and glance down only when you need to.
About the book
The opening tells of two hunters returning empty-handed on a moonlit night who spot a tanuki drumming on its belly in a tree by the Hachiman shrine, only to be tricked again and again when they shoot at it—it vanishes, then turns into a stone. Told in the tone of a folk tale, it reads lightheartedly and playfully, mixing the quiet of the moonlit night with the tanuki's mischief.
Cultural notes (selection)
Background a translation can’t carry: social roles, history and allusions. While reading, tap “Note” at the end of a sentence to see them all.
Hachiman is a deity widely worshipped in Japan. Originally a god of war and the ancestor of the bow and arrow, he is enshrined in the guardian shrines of villages throughout the country. A small shrine outside the village together with its grove is a typical feature of the traditional Japanese countryside.
On moonlit nights, the tanuki is said to drum on its belly with its forepaws, making a booming sound. This is called 'belly-drumming' (haradaike) and is one of the tanuki's best-known talents in Japanese folklore, appearing frequently in legends of tanuki on moonlit nights.
Originally this word referred to a person who had withdrawn from the world or retired. In villages it was an honorific title for an elder of good character, not necessarily someone actually living in retirement. Addressing him repeatedly as 'Go-inkyo, go-inkyo' expresses the respect of the whole village.
How the glosses are made
Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.
FAQ
Is this the original text?
Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from 青空文库.
Do I need to pay or sign up?
Library books are free to read without an account. Other gloss languages and importing your own texts need an account and credits.
What level is it?
This one is marked “Beginner”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.
Can I use another gloss language?
English and Chinese glosses are prepared in advance; signed-in readers can generate other languages.