狼森と笊森、盗森
How four forests north of a farm got their curious names.
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About the book
"The Forest of the Wolf, the Forest of the Basket, and the Forest of the Thief" (Oino Mori to Zaru Mori, Nusuto Mori) is a fairy tale by Kenji Miyazawa, included in his only collection published during his lifetime, The Restaurant of Many Orders. Set in the area north of what is now the Iwate Kyoiku (Iwate) Farm, it tells the history of interactions between settlers and the forests known as Oino Mori, Zaru Mori, Kurosaka Mori, and Nusuto Mori, narrated by a great rock in Kurosaka Mori to "I."
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.
A real farm located at the southern foot of Mount Iwate in Iwate Prefecture, founded in 1891, and one of Japan's earliest large-scale modern livestock farms. Miyazawa Kenji's hometown of Hanamaki is nearby, and he often used this area as the setting for his works.
「けら」 is the Tōhoku regional word for a straw raincoat, a cape-like rain garment woven from grass, worn by farmers while working.
A mountain knife (yamagatana) is a small billhook used for cutting firewood and clearing paths in mountains and fields; a three-pronged hoe (sanbon-guwa) is a digging tool with three teeth, suited to clearing land full of tree roots; a plain hoe (karaguwa) is an ordinary flat-bladed hoe.
About the author
Kenji Miyazawa (27 August 1896 – 21 September 1933) was a Japanese novelist, poet, and children's literature writer from Hanamaki, Iwate, who also worked as an agricultural science teacher. His major works include Night on the Galactic Railroad, Kaze no Matasaburō, Gauche the Cellist, and The Night of Taneyamagahara, and his work gained its reputation mostly after his death.
Summary prepared with AI from Wikipedia: 狼森と笊森、盗森 (CC BY-SA)
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.
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What level is it?
This one is marked “Intermediate”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.
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