And the I'm going to be. Welcome to Snuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

On Snuscast, we read excerpts from public domain works and occasionally original stories.

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That way you can play a single episode and fall asleep without another one

automatically playing. This episode is supported by waking up to a snowstorm and going back to bed.

Tonight I'll be reading a Japanese folk story called The Bamboo Cutter and the Moon Child.

It's taken from a book originally published in 1908 by Yea Theodora Ozaki from Tokyo.

The author's story was inspired by the Japanese classic Takatari Monogatari. Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your eyes. close your body

body into the softness of your bed.

Now. Now take a few deep breaths. The bamboo cutter and the moon child.

Long, long ago, there lived an old bamboo woodcutter. He was very poor and sad also. For no child

had heaven sent to cheer his old age, and in his heart there was no hope of rest from work till he died and was laid in the

quiet grave. Every morning he went forth into the woods and hills wherever the bamboo

reared its lithe green plumes against the sky. When he had made his choice, he would cut down these

feathers of the forest and splitting them lengthwise or cutting them into joints would carry the bamboo wood

home and make it into various articles for the household and he and his old wife gained a

small livelihood by selling them. One morning as usual he had gone out to his work and having found a nice clump of

bamboos had set to work to cut some of them down.

Suddenly, the green grove of bamboos was flooded with a bright, soft light, as if the full moon had risen over the spot.

Looking round in astonishment, he saw that the brilliance was streaming from one bamboo.

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