Translator's Note: In Japanese folklore, the yamanba (or yamauba) is an old, ghoulish woman who lives in the depths of the mountains and practices magic. According to legend, she assumes the form of an old woman as long as she wears a magical cloak called an ubakawa, but when she removes it, she can transform into other shapes, including that of a young woman. The first and fifth passages contain a reference to the second chapter of Hokekyō (‘The Lotus Sutra’). There one finds a statement that even little children who innocently create small stupas out of sand for the Buddha can achieve enlightenment. In the third stanza, Tada states the yamanba picks a hiyu. She uses the characters that mean “metaphor” or “simile” (比喩), but there is another word with the same pronunciation that means an amaranth flower. In the translation, I have taken the liberty of including both possible meanings. In the final stanza, Tada mentions a cicada shell. This is a common metaphor in classical Japanese poetry for a transient existence, since the word utsusemi, meaning an “empty cicada shell” (空蝉), is a homonym for a word that means “the present body” or “this mortal body” (現身).
