The Story of the Fairy Boat -Storytelling Podcast for Kids:E375

Once upon a time, there was a little boy whose name was Ho Lai.

But little Ho Lai did not have a mother.

He had only a cruel stepmother who was very horrid to him.

Every day she sent him out with a basket in his arm to gather up frogs.

One day Ho Lai went out to the fields as usual, but while he was hunting frogs to appease his cruel stepmother, he came across a bag filled with coins.

Not knowing to whom the money belonged, the boy decided to sit down and guard the bag in hopes that the owner would return to claim it.

Nearly all day he sat there and watched.

At last, a man appeared hunting for his lost money.

He was so pleased to discover that Ho Lai had kept it for him that he offered the boy half the bag's contents.

But little Ho Lai said that he did not wish for a reward as he had done no more than his duty.

But it was now too late to catch frogs, and when the boy went home that evening with his basket quite empty, and his stepmother on hearing his story learned that he had refused an offer of money, she was so enraged that she promptly ordered him from the house.

Giving him a basket and a stick, she drove him forth, crying, that if he had no more sense than he had showed that day, then he had best go beg for his living.

So little whole I went out into the night.

Fortunately, it happened to be the fifteenth of the eighth month.

So the moon was full and golden, and the night almost as bright as noon.

As the boy walked aimlessly along, he kept his eyes fastened on the big friendly moon above.

All of a sudden, he saw... tiny golden boat come floating down on a moonbeam.

Tiny people were rowing the boat.

Others were dancing and singing, and still others played merrily on musical instruments.

Holai thought he had never heard such lovely music, and he listened entranced.

Then holding up his basket, he begged that the little boat might drop into it.

To his great delight, the tiny boat did drop right into his basket, and the fairy people said that they had come to help him.

Then the fairies went inside the boat.

It shrank to a very small size, and Ho Lai placed it in his pocket.

He wandered on until finally he came to the emperor's palace and there he got employment as a servant.