The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter

Quick Answer

Why This Story Works for Bedtime

It’s lyrical and tender, though bittersweet. For bedtime, it’s best framed as a love story between parents and child, and the comfort of knowing love remains even when goodbyes happen.

Story Synopsis

An elderly bamboo cutter lives quietly in the countryside. One day, while cutting bamboo, he notices a stalk glowing from within. Inside he finds a tiny girl, no larger than his thumb, shining like a little moonlight. He and his wife take her home and raise her as their own. Miraculously, she grows quickly into a girl of extraordinary grace and beauty. As the bamboo cutter continues his work, he begins to find gold and fine treasures inside bamboo stalks, and the family becomes prosperous. Word spreads about the girl—Kaguya-hime—and noblemen come from far away hoping to marry her. But she does not choose easily. She gives suitors impossible tasks, as if to test not wealth but sincerity, and each attempt ends in failure or humiliation. Even the emperor hears of her and wishes to see her. He is moved by her presence, and a quiet bond forms, but Kaguya-hime remains distant, as if carrying a secret sorrow. At last she confesses the truth: she is not of this earth. She came from the moon, and when the time arrives, people from the moon will come to take her home. Her adoptive parents are devastated, and even the emperor tries to protect her, but no human power can stop the moon’s call. On the appointed night, a radiant procession arrives. Kaguya-hime says goodbye with love and gratitude, leaving letters behind. She is taken away in light, and those who remain feel both heartbreak and awe. The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is a gentle, ancient story about the beauty of a gift that cannot be kept—and the deep love that remains after farewell.

Story Excerpt

Long, long ago, in a land of green hills and whispering groves, there lived an old bamboo cutter and his wife. They worked hard and lived simply. Each morning the old man went out with his axe to the bamboo thickets, where the tall stems lifted their feathery leaves toward the sky. He cut the bamboo, split it into smooth strips, and carried it home. Together, he and his wife made baskets and household things to sell. They were kind people, but there was a quiet sadness in their home, because they had no child. One morning, as the bamboo cutter was choosing a strong, straight stalk, the grove suddenly filled with a soft, silvery light—so bright and gentle it felt as if the full moon had risen among the leaves. The old man stopped, astonished. The light was streaming from one bamboo stem. He set down his axe and stepped closer. There, in a hollow in the green bamboo, stood a tiny person—only as tall as his hand, and so beautiful that the light around her seemed to belong to her. The old man’s voice trembled with wonder. “You must be sent to be my child,” he said. “For I find you here among the bamboos where lies my daily work.” Carefully, as if lifting something precious, he took the little girl in his palm and hurried home. His wife gasped when she saw the tiny child, then her face softened with joy. To keep the little one safe, she laid her gently in a basket lined with cloth, and the two old people watched over her as if she were a candle flame that must not be disturbed. From that day on, their home felt warmer. They spoke more softly, laughed more often, and worked with lighter hearts. And something else changed. When the bamboo cutter went out to cut bamboo, he began to find gold tucked into the notches of the stems, and sometimes shining jewels as well. He would blink, rub his eyes, and look again—but there it was, as real as the green leaves above him. Little by little, the poor bamboo cutter was no longer poor. He built a finer house, and people began to speak of him as a wealthy man. Three months passed, as quickly as a bird’s wingbeat. And the child—wonder of wonders—grew into a full-grown girl.

In One Glance