JAPAN
whether the figure was Kiuchi. He answered yes, and prayed to be taken down. But no sooner had they laid hands on him than he fainted away and lay for three days in a swoon. When he recovered consciousness he said: "That evening I heard my name called, and going out, found a monk, dressed in black, shouting 'Heizayemon, Heizayemon.' Beside him stood a huge man with flaming red visage and dishevelled hair reaching to the ground, who ordered me roughly to climb to the roof of the vestibule. I refused and drew my sword, but in a moment he seized it, broke the scabbard in pieces and bent the blade into the shape of a kettle-handle. Then they tore off my girdle, and with three blows of their staffs cut it into as many pieces. After that I was raised to the roof, beaten severely, and finally compelled to take my seat on a round tray, which ascended with me into the air and travelled at lightning speed to various regions. It seemed to me that I had been ten days flying through space when I began to pray to Buddha, and immediately I was lowered, apparently to the summit of a high mountain, but really to the roof of the temple. At the same time I recognised the voice of a venerable priest who had previously interfered to prevent the monsters from beating me to death. I asked the name of my benefactor, but he answered only that he had lived on Mount Hiei for nine hundred years." Sometimes the tengu assists heroes to achieve their aims, as when
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