Among the many characters that inhabit Japanese fairy tales there is Kintaro.
He was a prodigious child whose origins are not clear: according to some versions, in fact, he would be the biological son of the mountain witch Ashigara.
In others, he would be abandoned in the woods by his noble mother as he was born out of wedlock and only subsequently nursed and educated by a mountain witch who was usually known for devouring children.
The superhumanly gifted young man one day met General Raiko, who agreed to take him as his subordinate.
His name thus changed from Kintaro to Sakada no Kintoki and from then on, he was remembered as one of the four ShitennÅ, or four heavenly kings.
