In the days of old, there was a man named Sentaro, meaning millionaire. While he could not quite be considered rich, Sentaro was well-off, as he had inherited a small fortune from his father. Every soul around him worked hard, yet he lived his life carelessly. In his 32 years of life, he had never worked a single day.
Still, the young man wasn’t happy. He was absolutely terrified of death or sickness, and the mere thought of them sent a chill down his spine. Sentaro was of the opinion that the life of humans was too short; he himself wished to live up to five or six hundred years of age and thi hope kept him from living a normal life. As he wondered if such a feat was possible, the man heard of stories of past emperors having ruled for over 1000 years. He also found out the princess of Yomoto was thought to have lived up to three centuries.
Therefore, Sentaro sought out to learn how to live forever. In his search for knowledge, he often heard of the Chinese king Shin-no-Shiko, renowned mostly for having built lavish palaces during his reign. The king, unhappy with the mere thought of his life and reign ending one day, seeked to obtain the Elixir of Life, a powerful liquid rumored to grant eternal youth to whoever drank it.
Shin-no-Shiko thus sent his old courtier Jofuku to look for the Elixir of Life. The king sent him across the sea to a country called Horaizon, were immortals were rumored to live, to obtain the Elixir of Life. The ruler had heard hermits had found the elixir, and were drinking it in order to live forever. Jofuku was tasked with finding the hermits, shower them with lavish gifts, and get a phial of the precious liquid for his king. Ignoring the hermits’ longing for austerity, Shin-no-Shiko prepared the best silks, jewellery and silverware to bring to the hermits and sent his courtier Jofuku on his crucial mission.
As Sentaro learned about the story, excitement ran through his veins. But there was one problem, said an old storyteller, Jofuku had never returned to his king with the phial and no one with knowledge of the story could share what had become of Jofuku.
The 32-year-old didn’t give up on his hope to live forever though. He continued his search far and wide, turning every stone by questioning storytellers across Japan, and reading every book he could get his hands on. Soon, Sentaro figured out Hraizon may have referred to Mount Fuji in the tale of Shin-no-Shiko and Jofuku. Fortunately, an old storyteller had told Sentaro about the patron god worshipped by the hermits on Mount Fuji. He was rumored to be of Chinese origin and was often referred to as Jofuku, like Shin-no-Shiko’s courtier. Could the patron god be the same Jofuku from the old tale? Sentaro wondered.
Armed with that suspicion, Sentaro was determined to go to Mount Fuji, find the hermits, become one of them and obtain the Elixir of Life. This plan pleased him. He left his home in the care of relatives and set out to climb the highest peaks of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately, the young man reached the peaks, but found no trace of the hermits. The only soul he encountered on his hike looking for them was a hunter.
Sentaro questioned the man on the whereabouts of the hermits. His question found the hunter equally puzzled about their location. However, the hunter indicated a great robber with over 200 followers roamed around these parts, and often met at a local temple. Sentaro thanked the hunter and followed the clue, only to find the aforementioned temple was in fact a shrine of Jofuku. He was indeed the patron god of the hermits in the south of Japan!
Sentaro proceeded to worship and pray at the shrine of Jofuku for days in a row. While his knees pained him from kneeling and his body protested from his negligence, Sentaro kept praying to Jofuku for the Water of Perpetual Life.
At midnight on the seventh day of continuous prayers in the temple, Sentaro heard loud noise. The door of the innermost shrine had flung open, and a being he immediately recognized as Jofuku appeared in a luminous cloud, calling Sentaro closer.
“Your desire is a selfish one, Sentaro, and for this, I cannot grant you the Elixir of Life,” said Jofuku.
Sentaro tried to respond, but found himself unable to utter a single word.
“Nor can you become a hermit in this life, for you love good food and drink, as well as a lavish lifestyle too much. You see, the life of a hermit is neither fun nor comfortable. It is one of seclusion and restriction,” continued Jofuku. “Were you to become a hermit, you would have to fast long enough to stop feeling hunger or temperature. Only then would your body become so pure and light as to live forever.”
Although Sentaro wanted to protest, he knew too well he had neither the patience nor the endurance to live a hermit’s life.
“Instead,” said Jofuku, “I will send you to the country of Perpetual Life, where death never comes.”
Jofuku then proceeded to hand Sentaro a small paper crane, before telling him sitting on its back would bring him to the desired land. Sentaro blinked once, and Jofuku disappeared.
Sentaro looked at the small origami bird in his hand, and put it in his pocket before going outside. He then put the paper crane on the ground, unsure of what to do next. Before long, the paper crane started to grow until it reached Sentaro’s shoulder in height. The young man thus climbed on the giant bird and was quickly swooped off his feet.
The paper flew with care into the night sky at a speed Sentaro couldn’t have imagined. He saw Mount Fuji quickly disappear behind him. The sea was soon all he could glaze at below his feet, the dark mysterious vastness stretching far into the horizon. Sentaro rode the bird for hours, and then days without ever tiring or feeling hunger or thirst. Somehow, as he flew away on the mystical paper crane, he barely felt the effects of time. Only the alternating days and nights could confirm the time passing him by during the flight.
Once many days had passed, Sentaro noticed high cliffs in the distance. The giant bird eventually flew over a mountain range before landing in a green valley beside a village on a foreign island. Had Sentaro reached the land of Perpetual Life? He got off his mount and the paper crane, small once again, flew right into his pocket.
Sentaro quickly reached the village, looking around this strange land, quite different from his own. The greenery was tall and strong, the streets were clean and beautifully paved. The man noticed easily how prosperous the village seemed; everyone he crossed seemed healthy, appropriately clothed and deprived of the wrinkles misery and hard times leave behind around the eyes and on the forehead.
On this exploratory walk, Sentaro’s feet led him in front of an impressive hotel and the man decided to take up lodging there for the next few days. He pushed the golden doors open and a clear bell resounded in the hall.
The owner of the place turned out to be a very kind lady who helped Sentaro get settlted as a newcomer in town. She promised to assist him in his official entry in the land and even introduced him to her wife, the governor of the city.
As Sentaro slowly got acustomed to his new surroundings, Sentaro soon learned about the land of Perpetual Life from the locals. Within memory, no human had ever died there. Some people had been alive for centuries and had seen neither sickness nor death touch the human condition on the island.
A few hundred years back, peculiar priests from foreign lands had visited to tell the inhabitants of the land of Perpetual Life of a place called Paradise, which could only be reached through the portal of death. Despite no one ever coming back from it, legend said Paradise was synonymous with happiness and bliss. Thus, in the land of Perpetual Life, Sentaro learned that death was longed for rather than feared. The Islanders did not dread the end of their existence. Instead, they wished for something other than Eternal Life.
In this land of topsy-turvydom, everything seemed unreal compared to what Sentaro knew. Rather than trying to escape death like himself, Sentaro found the islanders suffered greatly from being doomed to never die. People ate poison as delicacies, hoping to make themselves sick. They imported all kinds of mortal concoctions and venemous animals from faraway lands, in the mere hope they would bring them if only one step closer to meeting their end. Poisonous globe-fish was served in high-end restaurants and street vendors had Spanish fly sauces on offer.
However, the poisons and venoms only seemed to make them healthier. Death became this intangible and unachievable goal to strive for with the Islanders’ every action. What use was there to an existence that would never end? Joy had no purpose when they could only vainly imagine death.
The people in the land of Perpetual Life, opposite to Sentaro, thought life too long. They would have given their most prized possessions and memories to only live two to three centuries at most! As aging into elders was unheard of, chemist shops concocted various potions and elixirs meant to turn hair grey and cause disorders of the stomach.
Sentaro settled in this bizarre land comfortably, convinced he would never grow tired of living. In fact, he was delighted to find himself in a land deprived of sicknesss and death! Decades passed, and his body remained as healthy as it was when he was only 32. He started a business and accumulated wealth, all the while not seeing even a mere broken bone or hearing a single sneeze.
Sentaro was so satisfied, he never even thought of moving back to his native land for the first few centuries. Years went by and, over time, a thought slowly creeped into his mind. As he encountered more of the same, a feeling of jadedness enveloped him. He had a few unpleasant losses in business and his relationships with his neighbours turned awry.
On his three hundredth birthday, Sentaro was annoyed and tired of the life in this strange country he had once admired so much. He had started longing for his native land, for his old home.
Thus, Sentaro thought to again pray to Jofuku. He built him a shrine in his home and spent endless days an nights kneeling at an altar, hoping the bright cloud with the strange being would reappear.
Suddenly, a thought crossed Sentaro’s mind: could the tiny paper crane who had brought him to this strange foreign land so many years ago being him back home? Sentaro immediately went to look for an old wooden box in his closet, where he had hidden the clothes he was wearing when he had first arrived on the back of the giant bird.
The box was already decaying so much that the lock gave out with only a little push. The man picked up the rags that were left of his clothes and searched for the paper crane in the pocket. In his surprise, he found it! Unlike the chest and the rest of its contents, the origami bird had not changed one bit. Sentaro then walked over to the open space behind his house and placed the paper crane on the ground before taking a step back. Akin to the first time he had placed the origami bird on the ground at the peaks of Mount Fuji, the paper crane grew and grew until the vessel reached Sentaro’s shoulder. The man mounted his ride and whispered his desire to fly back to Japan.
As the bird took off, Sentaro kept his eyes locked on the land below his feet, a jittery feeling of unease swarming over him. The man was coming to realize he was leaving his new home for good. The panic set in when the giant paper crane flew over the vast sea. Sentaro tried to hold back the bird physically, but couldn’t. The vessel was flying further and further over the ocean, ever as far from the land of Perpetual Life. Strangely, Sentaro was at peace with the idea of reaching Paradise, but retrieving to a land he had not stepped on for nearly three centuries paralyzed him with fear.
Raindrops started falling from the dark clouds above and hitting Sentaro’s face. He looked up at the lightning strike chisming the grey sky before realizing the horror: the paper crane was melting under the now heavy rain. Soon enough, the bird’s wings couldn’t keep the duo in the sky any longer and they lost altitude, before falling into the cold dark sea.
It took Sentaro what felt like an endless moment before reaching the surface. The waves were humongous and strong, and there was no telling how deep the vastness of water was. The current brought Sentaro under the waves once again and he swallowed seawater. He waved his arms and legs around, trying — but failing — to stay afloat.
A giant shark suddenly swam towards Sentaro, who was properly panicking by then. He closed his eyes and screamed a prayer to Jofuku.
“Please, spare my life, Great Lord, for I…”
And everything went black.
Sentaro opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep at Jofuku’s shrine on Mount Fuji. Before him stood a being as bright as the cloud surrounding him. The being looked so perfect, Sentaro was tempted to rub his fingers along the being’s face to experience his gorgeousness for himself. Fortunately, Sentaro held back.
“Sentaro, you have been permitted in dream to see the land of Perpetual Life. As expected, although you wanted Eternal Life, you came to long for death like every other soul. Yet, in the face of your own demise, your rejected your fate once again, as your desire for death was only flimsy.”
Sentaro shivered at the thought of the marine giant’s teeth coming towards him.
“Still, it would be vain for you to become a hermit and seek out the Elixir of Life, as your way of living is far from austere. It would be best for your to go back home to your loved ones and make the most out of your existence on this Earth. Live a good and industrious life. Furthermore, you should never neglect the anniversaries of your ancestors, nor forget to prepare the way forward from those coming after you.”
As soon as the ghost-like apparition had uttered his last syllable, he disappeared. Sentaro called out to Jofuku, hoping to get some of his questions answered. After a few hours of praying at the altar again, it became clear to Sentaro that the hermit patron god would not come back for him.
Therefore, Sentaro made his way back to his native land and reflected on Jofuku’s words. He lived to old age, surrounded by joy and love. It turned out, all Sentaro had to do was living, rather than focus on the vain desire to escape death, as when selfish desires are granted, they seldom even bring happiness.
Sentaro and his house prospered henceforth.
The serie Obscure Fairy Tales encompasses an array of tales, myths and legends from around the world. To read more, visit this page dedicated to fiction writing.
Kelly Asselin-Tousignant 
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