This folktale from Japan is about a hardworking man who leads a poor but happy life until the day a mountain spirit decides to grant him several wishes. Predictably, his initial wish is for riches. When this does not satisfy, he craves power. He starts with power over man (as a prince), and moves on to power over nature (as the sun, a cloud, and a great rock on a mountainside). He is never satisfied until finally realizing that a humble stonecutter has as much power as anyone or anything on Earth.
Our source was The Crimson Fairy Book, one of a series of twelve collections of folk and fairy tales for children edited by Andrew Lang. This is the eighth book in the series, and was first published in 1903. Lang’s source was Japanische Märchen und Sagen (Japanese Fairy Tales and Legends) by Prof. David Brauns, published in 1885. Although Brauns classified the story as Japanese, some sources believe that it may have originated in China. On the folktale’s Wikipedia page, there is also a suggestion that it may even have a European connection. This seems hard to believe as most European folktales are about people who wish to become rich or marry a prince or princess, rather than someone who wants to be an inanimate object such as the sun, a cloud or a mountain.
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