■ あらすじ　
　竜王と結婚したばかりの妃が病気に罹<かか>り、生きた猿の肝を
食べれば病が治ると竜王に訴えた。そこで竜王は、信頼のおける
海月<くらげ>に猿を探して連れてくるよう命じた。猿を見つけた海月は、竜王が待つ楽しい竜宮へ案内すると猿を騙し、背に乗せ海を進んだ。途中で海月はうっかり竜王の企てを話し、利口な猿は肝を木に掛けてきたので取りに行くと言って一緒に陸地に戻り、肝は誰かに持ち去ら
れて無くなってしまったことを竜王に言うよう告げた。手ぶらで戻った
海月から事の次第を聞いた竜王は激怒し、部下に海月の全ての骨が折れるまで叩かせ、それで海月には骨が一本も無くなった。

■ Outline of this story
　Shortly after wedding the King of the Dragons, the young Dragon Queen fell ill and told her husband that she would get well again only if she ate liver taken from a live monkey. The king ordered the Jelly-Fish, his trusty servant, to fetch a monkey. The Jelly-Fish found a monkey and tricked him into riding on his back to the Dragon-Land, where, he claimed, all sorts of pleasure awaited. But in the middle of the voyage, he told the monkey about the king's plot. Claiming that he had absent-mindedly left his liver hanging on a tree, the clever monkey insisted that they should return to the shore together. Back on land, he said that someone had stolen the liver, and sent the Jelly-Fish back empty-handed. The King of the Dragons flew into a rage when he heard the story from the Jelly-Fish, and ordered his officers to beat the Jelly-Fish until all of his bones were broken. As a result, the Jelly-Fish lost every bone in its body.

Note
　This tale spread throughout Japan, and was known as "Kurage Honenashi" (Why Jellyfish Have no Bones) or "Saru no Ikigimo" (A Live Monkey's Liver). In one version, the monkey is fetched by a turtle, and learns the truth from the jellyfish on guard at the palace gates. The English translation by B.H. Chamberlain simplifies the tale by having the jellyfish both fetch the monkey and spill the beans. The signature on the cover indicates that the illustrator is Gyokusho Kawabata.