The poor widow asked her eldest son to go east and search for the brocade.

The boy nodded and quickly set out on his journey. After traveling eastward for more than a month, he came to a mountain pass where an old white-haired woman sat in front of a stone house. Beside her stood a handsome stone horse which looked like it longed to eat the red fruit off the pretty tree that grew next to it.

As the eldest boy passed by, the old lady stopped him.

“Where are you going, young man?” she asked.

“East,” he said, and told her the story of the brocade.

“Ah!” she said, ‘the brocade your mother wove has been carried away by the fairies of the Sun Mountain because it was so beautifully made. They are going to copy it.”

—

Next time: “Second Thoughts”