ultimately discovered by the father, who comes here on a hunting expedition. He builds them a fine mansion in Kiōto, in which they all live happily ever after.
The Hamamatsu Chiunagon Monogatari is a story of a Japanese noble who goes to China and has an amour with the Empress. He brings back to Japan with him a child who was the fruit of their union. The author is unknown. It belongs to the second half of the tenth century.
The story called Ochikubo Monogatari also belongs to the second half of the tenth century. Mabuchi would assign it to the period from 967 to 969. Its author is said to be one Minamoto no Shitagaü, a small official and famous scholar, who flourished in the reigns of the Mikados Murakami, Reizei, and Yenyū. The name Ochikubo means "underground cavity." The heroine, a young lady of noble birth, is confined in a room underground by her step-mother. She has a very miserable time, until by the help of a female servant she makes the acquaintance of a young nobleman, who assists her to escape. Of course they are married and live happily ever after.
A work named Sumiyoshi Monogatari is mentioned in the Makura Zōshi. Critics, however, are agreed that the book now known by that name is a forgery of a later date. It is also a story of a wicked step-mother (a favourite character of far-eastern fiction), and of the events which led in due course to her condign punishment.
The author of the Yamato Monogatari is really unknown, though it has been ascribed by some to Shigeharu, a son of Narihira, the hero of the Ise Monogatari, and by others to the Mikado Kwazan. It is an imitation of the Ise Monogatari, but is much inferior to its model,
