Long, long ago in a certain place there were two brothers. The older brother's bride was strong-willed, and so the mother lived elsewhere with the younger brother. The younger brother, however, was poor, and they lived with almost nothing to eat or drink. It was the end of the year, and since the younger brother couldn't provide his mother with enough food on ordinary days, he wanted to get rice to eat at least for New Year's Day. And so he thought, "There's really nothing I can do now except ask my brother."

He went to his brother's home and asked, "Brother, brother! Won't you loan me one sho of rice? I'll gather firewood in the mountains and sell it to buy rice to repay you."

The older brother was a heartless person. He said, "I wouldn't loan you one grain of rice," and turned away after harshly scolding the younger brother.

With no other recourse, the younger brother hiked to a distant mountain and picked flowers that grew there. He planned to sell them to buy some rice. He then walked through the town calling," Don't you need flowers? Flowers, flowers! Don't you need flowers for New Year's? Beautiful flowers!" But wherever he went, people said they had just bought theirs; not one person bought from him. Crushed with disappointment, he wandered aimlessly until he neared the breakers on the coast.

He listened to the regular roar of the waves as they rolled in and retreated. As he watched, he had an idea: "As much trouble as I went to to gather flowers in the distant mountains, I can't sell any. Why don't I offer them to the god in the Dragon Palace at the bottom of the sea? It may be that flowers like this are a rarity in the Dragon Palace."

Fixing his eyes on an approaching wave, he called out, "Dragon God, I give you flowers," and flung all the flowers he had into the sea.

As soon as he did that, a man lightly stepped out of the wave the younger brother had thrown the flowers at. The man said, "Well, thank you very much. The truth is, we had no New Year's flowers in the Dragon Palace, and were wondering what to do. I don't know how to express our gratitude for so many fine flowers. So what do you think? Won't you come with me to the Dragon Palace so we can thank you?"

"I'm sorry, but my mother is waiting at home."

"No, it won't take long. You step where I step, and we'll be there before yhou can draw a breath. Let's go-- everyone is waiting at the Dragon Palace to thank you for the flowers."