THE GREAT FIRE OF THE PURPLE ROBE

about 250 years ago, a rich wine-seller lived in tokyo, one day , he and his family were at their local temple.
the wine-seller's daughter noticed a young samurai in the crowd. he was very handsome and she inmediately fell in love with him. but he disappeared in the crowd. because she was in love , she remembered his face and his clothes very clearly, he wore a purple robe.
the wine-seller's thought that if she wear a robe of the same colour perhaps he will notice she at the next holiday, she ordered a bright purple robe, " please let me win his love", she prayed to the buddhas. she could think only of him. but she never saw him again. she fell ill, and died.

the purple robe was sold at a good price for a lady young. she only wore it for one day , then she fell ill and began to act strangely, and she died too; and again the robe was sold, a third young lady bought it, she wore it only once before she fell ill, she talked of a beautiful shadow, and she died, the robe was sold for third time, once more it was bought by a girl. once more it was worn . and the girl fell ill and died.

finally the priest was sure that there were bad spirits in the robe. he told his assistants to make a fire in the temple garden. the robe was burning house by house, street by street, and finally the whole city was in flames.
that terrible day is still remembered in tokyo, they called it " the day of the great fire of the purple robe".

THE FORTUNE-TELLER'S STORY

this is the story of a young samurai that learned to be a fortune-teller, he travaled around the country , he used a book called i-ching for fortune-telling , he learned many things and heard many stories . he had one favorite story that he often told:

"this story is about a young called shoko setsu, he was given a very important position at the emperor's court, but he only wanted to study and he gave up the position . he went to live in a hunt in the mountains and studied alone there.
one day of summer , he took a cup of water , then he lay down on the floor of his hut, he was just falling asleep when something ran across his face , he was angry so he picked up his cup and threw it at the animal , but the animal escaped and the cup was broken , he look more closely it . there were seventeen chinese characters along the line of the break this is what they said:
" in the year of the horse, in the fourth month, on the seventeenth day, at the fourteenth hour, this cup will fly across a hut in the mountain and break"
this day was the exact date, shoko setsu was very surprised. so he went to the place where he bought this cup, in this place a old man said" this cup was made here, but the characteres were written by an old man. he was a fortune-teller and he wanted to write on the cup before i put it in the oven, his house is not far from here.i can show you the way, but i do not know his name"
when shoko setsu arrive at the house, a student said: " we are very sorry to tell you that our teacher died a few days ago. but we are waiting for you, he knew that you would come to this house at this hour on this day. your name is shoko setsu, our teacher left this book for you.
shoko setsu acepted the book and he come back to his hut.
the book was many secrets about fortune-telling, the book senthim to a corner of the hut, great luuck was waiting for him there, it said. and under the earth in the corner of his little hut, he found a pot of gold."

our old japanese fortune-teller was not as lucky as shoko setsu. died in a snowstorm. when the people heard of his strange death, they remembered the old japanese saying: "the fortune-teller cannot see his own future"