Folk Legends of Japan (4 page)

Kunio Yanagita himself devoted considerable attention to legends in several books and in 1950 published an extensive classification,
Nihon Densetsu Meii
(Index of Japanese Legends). He sought to study
densetsu
by the comparative method and to explain the changes they underwent in different localities. Also he sharpened the concept
of densetsu,
pointing out differences from the fairy tale
(mukashi-banashi)
, such as the simpler structure of the
densetsu;
its flexible length, depending on the individual narrator; and its attachment to an "immovable evidence."

The bibliography in the
Nihon Densetsu Meii
reveals the forward strides in the field collecting of folk legends from the 1920's on. Nearly fifty volumes exclusively devoted to
densetsu
are listed by Yanagita, and since his index appeared they have continued to be published at the rate of two or three a year. Many of the collections were undertaken as cooperative projects by local high schools and educational societies. Others were compiled by enthusiastic amateurs. A postmaster in Yamanashi Prefecture, Riboku Dobashi, has issued two collections in the last four years. When I visited Kumamoto City in April, 1957,1 learned of four local collectors of
densetsu,
including a newspaper reporter, a radio script-writer, and a professor of folklore at a junior college. A collection represented in the present book, from Niigata and Sado, was undertaken by a local political party official whom I met in Niigata. A good portion of such volumes are locally published (one in Miyazaki was subsidized by a bank); but they are published in small editions, and are difficult to come by. Because these are largely amateur productions, they do not satisfy all the demands of professional folklorists, who wish to see every text documented with the name of the storyteller and the date of the narration. Sometimes such information is given, but more often it is withheld. Nevertheless, these local groups and individuals have performed invaluable service by bringing together the oral legends of their localities which the handful of professional folklorists, concentrated in Tokyo, attached to universities, and studying many aspects of folklore besides
densetsu,
could never have procured. Some local pride and boosterism for special legends can be observed in different regions, which are in any case vain of their products and attractions. Throughout the southern island of Kyushu one encounters in the shops carved figures of
kappa
in endless variety, for Kyushu is reputedly its original home. On Sado Island, off the northwestern coast of Honshu, a spot frequented by Japanese tourists but rarely penetrated by Westerners, I kept seeing the image of a lovely dancing girl with a sweeping long-brimmed hat nearly hiding her features, displayed in dolls, etched on lacquer ware, painted in pictures. This was the likeness of Okesa, who danced as a geisha to make money for a needy old couple on Sado after they befriended a stray cat. To help them out, this cat took the form of a lovely girl and entertained. The memory of her dance and costume stays green and even Tokyo geisha perform the Okesa dance.

Apart from these rare exceptions, the mass of Japanese folk legends remains still the exclusive property of the village communities. None have been widely reprinted and translated as have certain fairy tales, like "Momotaro" (The Peach Boy). The Western world indeed knows very little about these
densetsu.
Early translators concerned themselves chiefly with the
mukashi-banashi,
and only Lafcadio Hearn gave serious attention to the legendary traditions that permeated the land he cherished.
Kwaidan
is entirely devoted to somber traditionary tales, but they recur throughout
Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, Kotto, In Ghostly Japan, Kokoro,
and his other books. Hearn tells us that he heard some from a young acolyte he met in a Buddhist temple, while others he took from esoteric Japanese writings. Hearn did not of course have access to field collections of
densetsu,
and his own literary instinct and religious bent turned him to educated priestly informants and to poetic treatments. Nor did he intend any systematic description of Japanese folklore. Still, he provides a trustworthy guide into unfamiliar corridors of Japanese folk ideas, and those who dismiss Hearn as a dewy-eyed romancer should consider his grisly and macabre legends.

The present book is intended to bring a representative selection of Japanese folk legends to Western readers. During the ten months I spent in Japan, from October, 1956, to August, 1957, as a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Tokyo, I had the good fortune to live close by the Japanese Folklore Institute in Seijo-machi. There I met Professor Yanagita and his associates, and there I spent many hours with Miss Yasuyo Ishiwara, who made literal translations for most of the legends printed here. Miss Ishiwara had served as principal assistant to Mr. Yanagita in the work on his
Nihon Densetsu Meii,
and was admirably fitted to steer me through the unfamiliar bibliography and acquaint me with characteristic legends. The Institute closed in May, 1957, for lack of funds, a tragic blow indeed to Japanese folklore studies. Other translations were made by a talented student of mine at Tokyo University, Miss Kayoko Saito, who in addition obtained a number of
densetsu
directly from her grandmother. When I met the grandmother, a wholesome, rotund woman of surprising girth for Japan, she told me— through Kayoko—of hearing village tales from her own grandmother on the southerly island of Shikoku; she could even remember the exact year of her childhood when she first heard a particular story.

In making selections for this volume I have attempted to represent major themes, different geographical areas, and important collections of Japanese oral legends.

PART ONE

PRIESTS, TEMPLES, AND SHRINES

IN JAPAN the religion and lore of the folk merge in a common realm of popular beliefs. The development of Shintoism from primitive nature worship, and the sixth-century importation of Buddhism from China via Korea, merely increased the variety of religious legends circulating among the villagers. Shintoism contributed the veneration of departed spirits, particularly of angry ones, and Shinto shrines proliferated endlessly with each new passionate or noble death. Hence legendary traditions gathered about each shrine, no matter how tiny or humble, for each embalmed a story. Most of the hundred thousand shrines belong to the folk, in distinction to large famous shrines, which employ salaried priests and hold colorful festivals. Buddhism too, while introducing a subtle philosophy with complex ritual, at the folk level scattered miraculous tales about Buddhist priests and statues. The images of Buddha were said to whine and writhe if robbers carried them off. A mass of legends clustered around Kobo Daishi, or St. Kobo (774-835), founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism, whose esoteric formulas appealed to the magic-minded common people. In the guise of a wandering beggar Kobo Daishi rewarded the generous and punished the greedy, much like St. Peter in Christian legend. Numerous, devoutly believed stories tell of Buddhist priests laying troubled spirits. East or West, the folk mind shuns abstract doctrine for the vivid, concrete tale dramatizing the supernatural power of gods and priests. In Japan, such legendary histories cling to shrine and temple, and are even dispensed by the priestly class, proud of the individual acts of faith and sacrifice connected with their particular sanctuaries.

SAINT KOBO'S WELL

This and the following four legends deal with the miracles of Koho Daishi. The present one, where he brings forth a well with his cane or staff, is widely told. See Japanese Folklore Dictionary, "Koboshimizu" (Kobo's well); Yanagita,
Mountain Village Life,
ch. 59, p. 420 (where the miracle is also credited to St. Rennyo). On pp. 432-33 a story is told of a man in Takaoka-mura who prayed at a temple to be cured of eye trouble, and was told by a god in a dream to dig under a certain Japanese cedar tree by the temple, where he would find a well dug by St. Kobo; he washed his eyes in the well water and was cured. Suzuki, pp. 16-17, "The Well that Kobo Daishi Dug," gives an extra twist to the usual form by having St. Kobo's bamboo stick fly three miles away and take root upside down.

For Christian counterparts of this legend see Motif F933.1, "Miraculous spring bursts forth for holy person." The Kobo Daishi legends belong under the general motif Q1.1,
"Saints in disguise reward hospitality and punish in hospitality."

General accounts of Kobo Daishi can be found in Anesaki, pp. 251-53: U. A. Casal, "The Saintly Kobo Daishi in Popular Lore (A.D. 774-835),"
Folklore Studies,
XVIII (Tokyo, 1959), pp. 95-144; Hearn, V, ch. 2, "The Writings of Kobodaishi"; Ikeda, II, pp. 209-11; Joly, pp. 183-84, "Kobodaishi"; Mock Joya, IV, pp. 21-22, "Kobo Daishi"; de Visser,
The Dragon in China and Japan,
pp
.
162-64, 202, 206; de Visser, "The Fox and Badger in Japanese Folklore," pp. 112-13,136-37.

Text from Kunio Yanagita, "Folk Talesfrom Hachinoe," in
Mukashi-banashi Kenkyu,
II (Tokyo, 1937), p. 288. Collected by Kimura, 1936.

T
HERE IS
a spring by the name of St. Kobo's Well in the village of Muramatsu, Ninohe-gun. The following story concerning this well is told in this district. A girl was once weaving alone at her home. An old man, staggering, came by there and asked her for a cup of water. She walked over the hill more than a thousand yards away and brought back water for the visitor. The old man was pleased with her kindness and said that he would make her free from such painful labor. After saying this, he struck the ground with his cane. While he was striking, water sprang forth from the point struck by his cane. That spring was called St. Kobo's Welt.

The old man who could do such a miraculous deed was thought to be St. Kobo, however poor and weak he might look.

THE WILLOW WELL OF KOBO

A variant of the above. Text from
Edo no Kohi to Densetsu,
no. 17, p. 45.

Note: Kashima, a large shrine where warriors prayed before going into battle.

T
HERE IS
a well in the compound of Zempuku-ji in Azabu. In ancient times while Kobo Daishi was staying in this temple, in order to get the water for offering to the Buddha, he put his staff into the ground, praying to the god of the Kashima Shrine. Then clear water gushed forth. Later Kobo Daishi planted a willow tree by the well to commemorate it forever. So it is called the Willow Well.

THE KOBO CHESTNUT TREES

Ikeda refers to this legend and assigns it Type 750 B, "Hospitality Rewarded."

Text from
Aichi-ken Densetsu Shu,
p. 223.

I
N THE
mountains around Fukiage Pass in Nagura-mura, Kita Shidaragun, grow chestnut trees called Kobo chestnuts. Those trees bear fruit very young, even when they are only three feet high.

Hundreds of years ago there was a big chestnut tree on this pass. Boys would rush to climb it to pick the chestnuts, but little children could not climb the tree. One day while they were weeping, a traveling priest passed by, saw the little children crying, and said: "Well, you shall be able to pick the chestnuts from next year on."

The next year every small young chestnut tree bore fruit so that the little children could pick them easily. The villagers thought that the traveling priest must have been St. Kobo, and since then they have called these the Kobo chestnut trees.

THE WATERLESS RIVER IN TAKIO

In some variants potatoes grow hard as stones after they are refused to Kobo. A story from Mimino-mura, in Yanagita,
Mountain Village Life,
p. 407 (in ch. 56, "Curses of the Gods"), tells of a river turning dry after a man refused a beggar a piece of radish he was washing. Elisseeff, pp. 287-88, reviewing
Otari Kohishu
by Naotaro Koike, summarizes a legend of greedy fishermen who refuse fish to a begging bonze; he throws a sheet of paper into the water, and thenceforth the fish disappear from the river. Ikeda, pp. 210-11, analyzes the tale under Type 751, "The Greedy Peasant Woman." An unusual variant in Murai, pp. 68-69, "Maid-enhair Tree of Yoshida," tells of a woman who refused a night's lodging to a traveler; he says that leaves and snow will fall; after the snotv falls, his footprints remain in the drifts; it was St. Kobo. Since then people believe a heavy snow follows the falling of leaves.

Text from
Bungo Densetsu Shu,
p. 28. Told by Mitsuko Shikishima.