Folk Legends of Japan (21 page)

Text from
Shimane-ken Kohi Densetsu Shu,
Yatsuka-gun, p. 14.

Note:
Banta, eta,
members of the outcast caste.

D
URING THE TIME
of the sixth chief priest of Entsu-ji in Ino-mura, a beggar came to the temple one day and told the servant at the gate that he wanted to see the chief priest. As the chief priest was not in the temple at that time, the servant said: "Come again later because the priest has gone away on business." But the beggar did not move away, saying: "I will not leave until I see the priest." The servant was vexed and said: "I will call
banta
and have them tie you up." The
banta
came and were about to tie the beggar up when he turned into a big glittering fireball and flew up into the sky.

All the servants and the
banta
lost their senses from the shock. When the chief priest came back and heard of that he said: "It is an awful thing. It must be the revelation of the god Akiba. I cannot know what punishment we shall receive for such an impious deed." From that night on he offered prayers for seven days. On
the
last night he was so tired that he slept a while. In his dream the god revealed himself and told him to make an image of him and to worship it. When the priest was awakened, he saw something shining by his pillow. He looked at it. It was a small statue of Akiba. Encouraged by this miracle, the priest devoted himself to his religious services. Consequently the mountain shrine was built and many people came to believe in Akiba.

THE HUNTERS TURNED TO RATS

Light on this legend is thrown by a similar version from the opposite end off a pan reported by Kunio Yanagita in the valuable essay on "Yamadachi and Yamabushi" that he appends to
Mountain Village Life.
He found the legend preserved in an old manuscript on hunting owned by an ancient family in the mountain village of Okawachi in southern Kyushu. "Two hunter brothers go into the mountains for hunting and meet with the mountain goddess who has just delivered a baby. She asks them for help. The older brother will not render any help to her, because the blood of childbirth is the veriest taboo for a hunter. But the younger brother takes pity on the goddess and helps her. As a reward, he and his posterity are granted prosperity in their occupation of hunting, while the older brother is changed into a small fish in a mountain stream. In this story there is no blending of Buddhism" (p. 460). In the present legend the two brothers are replaced by two groups of hunters.

Text from
Too Ibun,
pp. 86-90.

A
RASE-MURA
in Kita Akita-gun is a village in the deep mountains, and most of the villagers live by hunting. In the mountains of this village lived so-called
kodama
rats, which are smaller than ordinary rats and have brown fur. In the bitter cold of winter these rats often burst to death on the trees, with pitiful sounds. The hunters frequently hear such sounds and find the dead rats. The name
kodama
may be derived from that sound. Why do these small creatures alone among the wild beasts have such a miserable existence? A tradition gives the reason as follows:

A long time ago two groups of hunters were in the mountains where each group had a hut. One numbered six men who called themselves the Sugi Group. And the other numbered seven and called themselves the Kodama Group. One night a young woman came to the hut of the Kodama Group and asked the men to let her stay that night, because she was going to have a baby. The hunters had a taboo against women in general, not to mention pregnant women. So of course those hunters did not allow this woman to come into their hut. They thought she must be an evil creature, and the head man held his gun point-blank against her. Then the woman went away regretfully.

After that the woman visited the hut of the Sugi Group and approached the men there in the same way. The hunters of that hut kindly let her in, saying: "You must have had troubles. Please come in and warm yourself by the fire." They took care of her and helped her to give birth to the baby. The woman thanked them and said to the head man: "I am not an ordinary woman. I am a mountain spirit. In reward for your kindness I will make you catch three bears tomorrow morning. When the morning comes, go to the ravine below this mountain. You will find there three big bears in a hollow log. You can shoot them in this way." And she taught them how to shoot. She also told them to go to see the hut of the other group, who had treated her badly. After she uttered those words she went away.

The hunters of the Sugi Group went to the ravine as the woman had told them and found three big bears in the hollow of the big tree. After they had shot all the bears they went over the mountain to the hut of the Kodama Group. There were only guns and other tools, but no men to be seen anywhere around. When the hunters looked up, they saw on the beam of the hut seven little rats with strange colored fur. They knew that the seven hunters of the Kodama Group had been turned into rats.

So nowadays the hunters have a taboo against making a group of seven.

THE MYSTERY OF THE BULL-TROUT

The
Minzokugaku Jiten,
under the entry "Kawaryo" (River-fishing), comments that in many places a legend is told of how a huge eel or catfish appeared in the shape of a man and begged people to cease from poison-fishing.

Text from
Hida no Densetsu to Minyo,
pp. 115-16.

T
HE POOL IN
Y
AMANOKUCHI-MURA,
Ono-gun, in the province of Hida (Gifu-ken), is called Dango-buchi. In former days it was a deep, gruesome pool, full of water, but now it is known as a beauty spot with a waterfall.

A, long, long time ago a villager planned to catch fish by putting
ne
into this pool.
(Ne
is a strong poison made by boiling the bark of the Japanese pepper tree with ashes. They say if one puts this
ne
into the river, fish are poisoned to death.) While the villager was boiling the poison in a big pot over the hearth in his home, a strange bonze suddenly came by and said to the master of the house: "You are making
ne
in the pot for the purpose of putting it into the pool up the river. Since this is not a good thing to do, I advise you to give up your plan." The people of the house gave him a dumpling which they were making just at that time. The bonze ate it and went away.

Feeling suspicious of the bonze, the master followed after him. The bonze disappeared when he came to the pool in which the master was going to put the
ne.

After the
ne
was prepared, the villager dropped it in the pool despite the bonze's advice. Then an exceedingly big bull-trout came up to the surface of the water. The man caught it and, when he put it on his shoulder, its tail touched his heels. He took it home and cut it open. A dumpling rolled out from inside the fish. So it was realized that this fish had visited the house disguised as a bonze. Thereafter the pool has been called Dango-buchi [Dumpling Pool] because the bonze ate the dumpling.

It is believed not only in this region but also in the province of Hida in general that an old bull-trout has power to change himself into a human being.

THE BLACKSMITH'S WIFE

From China comes a tale with a motif very close to the present, "Tiger grateful for woman assisting tigress as midwife" (Motif B387). Anesaki has a legend of a grateful crane who takes the form of a fine young lady and marries the man who saved her life, then finally returns to her bird life (pp. 323-24).

Told by Mrs. Hitoshi Kawashima Saito to her granddaughter Kayoko Saito in Tokyo on April 8, 1957.

O
NCE UPON A TIME,
at Yasuda in Aki, there lived a blacksmith. One day this blacksmith went to Awa, a neighboring province, on business. In order to reach Awa, he had to go across None-yama, an isolated mountain infested with wolves. If a traveler could not cross the mountain before sunset, he had to sleep at night in a tree, and many wolves with glaring eyes would gather under the tree and roar at him.

When the blacksmith was walking in great haste along the mountain padi to Awa, he was surprised to see a wolf beside the path. Approaching the wolf, however, he found that it was sufFering in the throes of birth. He felt sorry for the wolf and helped it deliver its cubs.

The sun was going to set, so he hurried to reach Awa. It grew dark, and yet he met no more wolves on the way. He reached Awa and returned again safe and sound.

Several days had passed after he came back from Awa, when a pretty and well-built woman came to his house and asked him to marry her. Since he had no wife, he married her. The bride was a hard worker and helped the blacksmith forge iron very ably. She bore many children for him, and they led a happy life. She was called Kajigakaka, which meant "a wife of a blacksmith," and she was loved by her neighbors as well as by her husband.

One day, Kajigakaka confided to the blacksmith the story of her origin. She was the wolf whom he had helped on None-yama! Thanking him, she expressed her desire to go back to her old den on None-yama since she had helped make him happy. She left the amazed blacksmith and disappeared.

Afterwards it was learned that all the children of Kajigakaka had thick hair on the chest. Even today, those who have hair on their chest are called the offspring of Kajigakaka.

THE GIRL WHO TURNED INTO A STONE

Mock Joya, III, 201-2, comments on the numerous legends of women turned into stone. The examples he gives are of grief-stricken women. Suzuki, pp. 58-60, "The Frog Stones," tells of lovers who turned into frog-shaped stones north of Kumamoto-shi.

Text from
Bungo Densetsu Shu,
pp. 114-15. Collected by Hideko Akiyoshi from Nishi Kokuto-gun.

L
ONG AGO
a mother lived with her only daughter. They lived quite comfortably. The daughter was about twelve years old. But she grew spoiled and always bothered the mother. One fine morning the mother said: "Since it is such a lovely day, you may go to the sea."

The daughter answered: "No, I won't. I will go to the mountain." "Well, then you may go to the mountain," said the mother. But the daughter answered: "No, I will go to the sea."

Thus the daughter was always contrary. In the meantime the mother became seriously ill. When she breathed her last, she said to the daughter: "Please bury me in the river after my death."

She really meant to be buried on the mountain, which had a beautiful view, but she gave her daughter instructions contrary to her own wish because she thought the daughter would act in the opposite way as usual. However, after the mother died, the daughter felt sorry for her disobedience, and she determined for the first time to do as the dying mother had told her. She buried her mother's corpse by the river.

A year later the river was flooded and the mother's tomb was washed away. So it resulted that the daughter did not fulfill the mother's last wish. One day afterwards, while the daughter was going on her way to Hachiman Shrine, she was crushed by a stone that came down from heaven, and was turned into the stone. Thus she was punished by the god for her disobedience to the mother.

Now, in Tokata-machi, by the
torii
that stands in the forest alongside the little stream of Katsura-gawa, there is a stone shaped like a girl but crushed flat as a frog.

THE WOMAN WHO LOVED A TREE-SPIRIT

Anesaki, p. 333, refers to the legend of Oryu, the spirit of an old willow tree, who married a warrior but had to part from him when the tree was cut down. "In the dramatized form of the story, the chief motive is the agony she manifests as each axe stroke cuts deeper and deeper into the tree." Hearn tells of a tree-spirit who had a child by her lover; when the
daimyo
ordered the tree cut down, the woman vanished inside it, and three hundred men could not budge the fallen tree; then the child pulled it easily (VI, ch. 16, "In a Japanese Garden," pp. 22-23).

Text from
Too Ibun,
pp. 111—14.

F
UJIWARA TOYOMITSU
was the governor of the province of Uzen about 1, 200 years ago, during the reign of Emperor Momma. He had a daughter named Akoya who was endowed with talent and beauty. One autumn evening as she was playing a
koto
the faint sound of a flute was heard outside accompanying the tune of her
koto.
Its tone was sweet and charming and it blended in harmony with the tune of the lady's
koto
in the serenity of the late autumn night. The player of the flute was a noble young man in a green dress. His name was Natori Taro, and he lived at the foot of Mt. Chitose. The two young people fell in love with each other.