Uchida (The Bracelet, 1993, etc.) tells this folktale with simplicity and grace. They can't solve them, but the farmer's mother can, and the cruel young lord, upon hearing who saved his village, reverses his decree. Given three impossible tasks, he sets them before the wise men of the village. If he can pass it, the village will be spared. But then the powerful Lord Higa sends men to invade the village, and they give the cruel young lord a test. He digs a secret room in his house, where his mother lives for two years without being discovered. On her 70th birthday, the farmer's mother tells her son to take her away, but he can't bear to leave her alone to die. In medieval Japan a young farmer lives with his old mother in a village ruled by a cruel young lord who has decreed that all the villagers who reach the age of 70 must be taken into the mountains and left to die.
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