Eighty-one princes are each jealous of each other, desiring to be king and to marry the Princess of Yakumi in Inaba. The brothers agree to travel to Inaba so each one can attempt to persuade the prince to marry him. The first 80 princes also all agreed to band together against the 81st brother, the only good one, who was not jealous or rough like his brothers. The 80 brothers forced the youngest to walk behind then and carry the luggage like a servant. The princes reach Cape Keta and find a miserable hare with his fur plucked out lying on the ground. The princes tell the hare to bathe in the sea and lie down on a high mountain to dry in the wind, promising it would restore the hare’s fur. The hare follows their instructions, but the saltwater dries and splits the hare’s skin, leaving him crying on the ground in horrible pain. The youngest brother, slowed down by the weight of the luggage, eventually reaches the same spot and finds the hare. The prince asks what happened, and the hare explains how he was on Oki island and tricked the sea crocodiles into lining up so he could run across them like a bridge. Before the hare was out of their reach, he boasted about his trick, and in retribution one of the crocodiles grabbed him and plucked out his hare. The prince interrupts to scold the hare’s behavior and tells him to continue. The hare says he was lying dwn, crying, when the other 80 princes told him to bathe in saltwater and lay on the mountain, worsening the hare’s condition. The prince tells the hare to wash itself in the river and to spread the sedges’ pollen on the ground and roll in it to heal his skin and regrow his fur. The hare follows his instructions and is cured, his fur growing in thicker than before. The hare tells the prince that his brothers will not win the Princess’s hand, but he will. The hare’s statement comes true, as the princess rejects the 80 princes and their cruelty, and accepts the 81st. They marry, and the prince becomes king, living happily ever after.

This is a first edition copy of the story titled The Hare of Inaba, a story whose later edition we also have as a part of our crepe-paper book collection. This specific story is one part of a larger acquisition of four books donated to the St. Olaf Library's Special Collections by Dickie Anderson, whose great-grandfather Charles MacQueen Fisher first acquired these stories while living in Osaka, Japan. The books were first given to her grandmother who was born in Japan, then passed on to Charles, and finally discovered by Dickie.