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| Image Information: Urashimo Taro and the Turtle, meeting the princess: Source: Faerymists |
The part b to this week's reading diary--Japanese Fairy tales. Enjoy!
Adventures as a right of passage into adulthood. Actively
looking for trouble to make a name for himself. Trying to prove himself to
others. Some weird things begin happening at midnight. Female sacrifice to
mountain spirit. Saves her by tricking him by replacing the maiden with a dog
that all the cats and spirit were afraid of (because they were cats). He ended
up making a name for himself after all.
Crab as a housewife. Lots of amalgamations of human and
animal characteristics into a single entity. A monkey treats their deal with no
respect and screws the crab over. So she resorted to her cunning to get her
revenge. Played to his pride and he dropped her share to her. In response to
that he beats her to the brink of death. More revenge is plotted against the
monkey now. Killed the monkey and lived happily ever after…
Random kettle appearing out of nowhere. Surprise it is
actually an animal of some sort. Apparently a troublesome beast that has a lot
of energy. Sold the kettle/tanuki because he didn’t want to deal with it
anymore. The new owner was told to travel the world and show off the creature
to become a very rich man. Had to ask permission of the animal and perform some
magical ceremonies. He respected the man he bought the kettle from and went
back to pay him a rightful price. Both grew old, respected by all.
A forest in which all the animals were killed and hunted to
the point of extinction. Only a small family remained in the forest, a fox, a
tanuki, and their son. Survived because of cleverness and magical skills. “We
are not so foolish as to risk our lives.” Dying of starvation. They will
transform into people and trick people as a means of income to buy food. The
next time it happened it was the foxes turn to be sold. But the tanuki decided
to get rid of her for good so that he and his son could live longer on the food
money. Told the buyer and he actually killed the fox. The Tanuki even began to
not feed his son after killing his wife (which was the whole point). So the kid
gets his father punished. Full circle.
Man and a hare as best friends. A tanuki who hated the
peasant took out his frustrations on the hare and made his life very hard. The
peasant captured the mean tanuki and sets off to kill him, skin him, and eat
him. Except that the tanuki tricks his wife into letting him go. And so the
tanuki immediately kills her and begins to make her into a meal to feed to the
peasant. What. This begins a circle of revenge. Hare tricks the tanuki and sets
him on fire. But didn’t kill him. So they waited for his retaliation blow while
plotting how to legitimately kill him. And they do, they drown him and live
happily ever after.
Lots of old couples in these stories. Had a son whom they
were willing to work endlessly for. He was brave and a great fisherman. Captures
a small turtle but returns it to the sea because of it’s pleading with him.
Promptly forgets about a talking turtle. Years pass and one day he runs out of
luck and almost drowns, only to be saved by the very turtle which he once saved.
Instead of taking him to the shore he takes him to the palace of the sea god
and introduces him to the princess. He stayed with her for a long time and
never grew old. Bu eventually he began to miss his parents. Given an impossible
task that was the only way he would ever be able to find his way back to her
after leaving. TURNS OUT 300 YEARS HAD PASSED. He opened the box he promised
not to open and promptly lost his youthfulness and died.
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