"Nihon mukashi banashi" ("Tales of Ancient Japan") by Japanese children's writer and journalist Sadzanami Sanjin (1870-1933) is known to every Japanese. These are not just folk tales, on which children are brought up from generation to generation, but also a literary monument that captures the worldview of the Japanese people, the originality of their mythology, psychology, ethics, way of life. The translation from Japanese was made by V. M. Mendrin. The book is reproduced according to the publication of Hasegawa Takejiro, decorated with illustrations by a Japanese artist and illustrator of the 19th century. Kobayashi Eitaku.