Repository path: workshop/translations/kachikachiyama/R10t-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

Click-Clack Mountain — 楠山正雄「かちかち山」, target A-english-tale-register

R10, target anchor A-english-tale-register, propositions T1–T8 frozen and committed before translating (workshop/translations/kachikachiyama/propositions.md, with that page's declared departure from R10 §2). Source: 楠山正雄「かちかち山」, Aozora Bunko 000329/18377_11982, 底本 『日本の神話と十大昔話』講談社学術文庫. 4,177 non-whitespace characters, complete, four sections. Public domain (楠山 d. 1950).

Contamination: none, measured. tools/dependence_check.py, a 200-word gate rendering of the opening against Yei Theodora Ozaki's "The Farmer and the Badger" (Japanese Fairy Tales, 1908, PG 4018 — the freely reachable published English rendering of this tale): 0 shared 7-grams, 0 shared 12-grams, longest common run 4 tokens. Run as a pre-selection gate, before the locus was fixed and before either translation was begun (CLAUDE.md standing rule). The comparator was extracted to disk and never read; the gate span was translated from the Japanese alone. Raw: workshop/gates/S098-kachikachiyama/result.json.

Paired with T-kachikachiyama-R10u-v1 — same source, same translator, same session, target A-mchugh-presence instead. The pair is the experimental object of E-20260803e.

I

Once upon a time, in a certain place, there lived an old man and an old woman. Now whenever the old man was out working in his field, an old badger would come down off the hill behind the house; and after spoiling the crops the old man had been at such pains to raise, it would pelt him from behind with stones and clods of earth, thick and fast. And when the old man lost his temper and gave chase, away the creature went in a twinkling. Presently it would be back, up to the same mischief as before. So the old man, being fairly at his wits' end, set a trap; and one day, sure enough, the badger was caught in it at last.

Up jumped the old man for joy.

"Ah, serves you right. I have you now."

And so saying, he tied the badger's four legs together, slung it over his shoulder and carried it home. And he hung it from the beam of the ceiling, and said to the old woman:

"Keep watch that it does not get loose, and have badger soup ready against my coming home tonight."

And with that he went off to the field again.

Under the badger where it hung tied, the old woman set out her mortar and went at the barley, thump, thump. And by and by:

"Oh, but I am tired," says the old woman, and wiped her face.

Whereupon the badger, that had hung quiet as you please up to that moment, called down to her from above.

"Please, mother, if you are tired, let me lend you a hand a while. Only untie this rope of mine."

"Not I, not I. What help should I ever have of the likes of you? Untie the rope, and it is not helping me you would be, but off and away that very minute."

"No, no. Caught as I am now, is it likely I should run? Come, only try me. Let me down and see."

And he begged so long, and so meekly with it, that the old woman was taken in and believed him, and untied the rope and let him down.

"There, there," said he, and rubbed his bound limbs. And then:

"Come, let me do the pounding for you."

And with that he took up the old woman's pestle, and made as though he would pound the barley, and brought it down of a sudden on the crown of her head; and before she could so much as cry out, the old woman's eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell down dead.

Then the badger set to work on the old woman without more ado, and where there should have been badger soup he made old-woman soup; and he took the old woman's shape upon him, and sat down before the hearth with a face as innocent as you please, and waited for the old man to come home.

At evening the old man, who knew nothing of any of it, came hurrying home, smiling to himself and thinking, "Badger soup for supper tonight." And the badger-woman, for all the world as though she had been waiting and waiting:

"Why, old man, and welcome home. I have had the badger soup ready this long while."

"Well, well, is that so? That is good of you."

And he sat straight down to his tray. And with the badger-woman waiting on him:

"This is good," said he, "this is good," and he smacked his lips over it, and took a second helping of the old-woman soup, and ate away for dear life. And seeing it, the badger-woman could not help herself, but let out a Heh, heh — and in the laughing showed what she was.

"Old man ate the old woman — look under the sink at the bones."

So said the badger, and put out his great tail, and slipped away out at the back door.

The old man was struck all of a heap, and his legs went from under him. And he gathered up the old woman's bones from under the sink, and sat there crying, oh, oh.

Then:

"Old man, old man, whatever is the matter?"

— and in came the white hare that lived on the hill behind, he too.

"Ah, hare, is it you? It is good of you to come. Only listen. A dreadful thing has been done to me."

And the old man told him the whole of it, this and this and this. The hare was very sorry for him.

"Dear, dear, that is a bad business. But never fear: I will get your vengeance for you, and certain too. Set your mind at rest."

Said he, stoutly. And the old man, with the glad tears running down:

"Ah, do, I beg of you. Truly there is no bearing it."

"Never fear. Tomorrow I will have him out and give him what he deserves. Only wait a while."

Said the hare, and went home.

II

Now the badger, since he ran from the old man's house, was afraid of something or other, and went nowhere at all, but kept close in his hole.

Then one day the hare put a sickle in his belt, and went, of set purpose, near the hole where the badger lay hid, and got out his sickle and fell to cutting brushwood, busily. And as he cut he took out of his bag the dried chestnuts he had brought with him, and ate them, crunch, crunch. Whereupon the badger caught the sound of it, and came crawling slowly out of his hole.

"Hare, hare. What is it you are eating there, so good?"

"Chestnuts."

"Give me a few, will you not?"

"I will give you some, if you carry half of this brushwood as far as the next mountain."

And the badger, for wanting the chestnuts, had no help for it but to shoulder the brushwood, and set off ahead of him. And when they got to the next mountain, the badger turned round.

"Hare, hare. Will you give me the chestnuts now?"

"Ay, I will give you them — when we have gone to the mountain beyond."

There was no help for it, so on the badger went again, striding ahead. And when at length they came to the mountain beyond, the badger turned round.

"Hare, hare. Will you give me the chestnuts now?"

"Ay, I will give them you; but go on to the one mountain further, since we are about it. This time you shall have them for certain."

There was no help for it, so the badger went on ahead again; and thinking now to get to the far mountain as quick as ever he could, he trudged away without so much as a look behind him. And in that while the hare took a flint from his breast and struck a light — click, clack. The badger thought it strange.

"Hare, hare, what is it that goes click-clack?"

"Why, this is Click-Clack Mountain, to be sure."

"Ah, so it is."

Said the badger, and walked on again. And meanwhile the fire the hare had set caught in the brushwood on the badger's back, and blazed up, roaring. And the badger thought it strange again.

"Hare, hare, what is it that goes roar-roar?"

"Why, the mountain yonder is Roaring Mountain, to be sure."

"Ah, so it is."

And while the badger was saying it, the fire had spread right over his back. And the badger:

"Hot, hot! Help!"

— screaming, and running for his life; and the mountain wind came up hard behind him and made the fire the bigger for it. And the badger set up a thin crying, and struggled, and rolled about, and got the burning brushwood off him at long last, and ran into his hole. And the hare said, loud on purpose,

"Ho, here's a to-do. Fire! Fire!"

— and went home saying it.

III

The very next day the hare ground red pepper into bean paste and made a plaster of it, and took it and came to the badger to ask after him. The badger had a great burn all over his back, and lay groaning in the pitch dark of his hole.

"Badger, badger. Truly you had a bad time of it yesterday."

"Ah, a bad time indeed. However shall I get this great burn healed?"

"Why, that is just it. I was so sorry for you that I made up the plaster that is best of all for a burn, and here I have brought it."

"Is that so? That is good of you. Put it on me straight away."

And so saying, the badger put out his back, blistered and raw and red; and the hare laid the pepper-paste on it thick, and everywhere, and never minded where. Whereupon the back went hot again, as though it were afire, and

"It hurts, it hurts!"

— said the badger, rolling about in his hole. And the hare looked on smiling, and

"Why, badger, it is only the first of it that smarts. It will be well directly. Bear it a little while."

Said he, and went home.

IV

Then four or five days went by. One day the hare was saying to himself,

"What has become of that badger? This time I will get him out to sea and give him what he deserves."

— and there, of a sudden, came the badger to call.

"Well, well, badger. Is the burn better now?"

"Ay, thanks to you, much better."

"That is good. Shall we be off somewhere again, then?"

"No, no. I have had enough of mountains."

"Then let mountains be, and let us go to the sea this time. There are fish to be had at the sea."

"To be sure, the sea sounds fine."

So the hare and the badger went off together to the sea. And when the hare made himself a boat of wood, the badger was envious, and copied him, and made himself a boat of earth. When the boats were done, the hare got into the wooden boat. The badger got into the earthen boat. And rowing separately out into the offing:

"Fine weather, is it not."

"A fine view, is it not."

— said the one and the other, gazing at the sea as though they had never seen the like of it. But the hare said:

"There are no fish about here yet. Let us row further out. Come, we will race, and see which is the quicker."

And the badger said:

"Good, good. That will be fine sport."

So they cried one, two, three, and rowed away. And the hare beat kan, kan on the side of his boat, and said,

"There. A wooden boat is light, and swift with it."

Whereupon the badger would not be beaten, and beat kon, kon on the side of his own, and said,

"Not a bit of it. An earthen boat is heavy, and strong with it."

And meanwhile the water soaked in, little by little, and the earthen boat began to crumble.

"Ho, here's a to-do. The boat is breaking up!"

— cried the badger, all in a fright, and set up a great outcry.

"Oh, I am sinking, I am sinking. Help!"

And the hare looked on at the badger's floundering as though it were a fine sight, and said,

"Serve you right. This is the wages of tricking the old woman and killing her, and giving the old man old-woman soup to eat."

And at that the badger said he would never do such a thing again, only save him, and put his hands together to the hare. But the boat crumbled away and away, and before he could so much as gulp, the badger went down at last.

Translator's log

Frozen before any evaluation of this translation was designed (R10 §7, charter §8). Decisions and alternatives, not quality claims. Codes are R10 §5's: A aimed (proposition ids), X contrary, N none bore. A decision is logged when two or more renderings were live at the moment of writing; the log therefore under-counts by construction.

Opportunity list, frozen with the log (R10 §6): T1–T6 and T8 all had opportunity in this source. T7 did not — 楠山's narrator never addresses a listener, and the anchor's direct-address feature ("O my Best Beloved") has no material to act on here. It is recorded absent for want of material, not for want of execution.

Two things about this text that are not quality claims and are needed by the design. internal-judgment-only. (i) The register's repertoire items are denser here than in the source's own formulaic load — decisions 5, 14 and 7 each add a repertoire marker where the Japanese has none. (ii) The hardest sustained problem was not any single word but the と言いました chain: the source attributes almost every speech with the same three characters, and English cannot repeat said he thirty times without the repetition becoming the subject. Decisions 9, 20 and the unlogged tags are all partial answers to it, and none is complete.