Day Eighteen

My chosen culture was the Japanese culture. The Japanese culture actually has a lot of folktales. In Japanese folktales, it reveal information about Japanese history, life, and customs. The three stories that I've chosen are "Kaguya Hime," "Hanasaka Jiisan," and "Tsuru No Ongaeshi." There are many versions of these folktales, since they've been passed down from generation to generations, so I couldn't find the original authors to these stories. However, I believe Hanasaka Jiisan was also collected by Andrew Lang in his Violet Fairy Book.

Kaguya Hime is a fairy tale, although I'm not sure who it was originally written by. The title translates into, "The Tale of Princess Kaguya." This story starts of with an old childless bamboo cutter saw a shining stalk of bamboo. He decided to cut it, and in it was a small beautiful little girl. So, he decided to take it home to his wife and raise her. Amazingly she grew fast into a beautiful woman, and men from far and near wanted to marry her. There were five pursuers that had not given up. So, she requested items from each one of them that was impossible to find on Earth. Soon, each one of them gave up since they knew that the items she asks for was impossible to get. Each day she grew even more beautiful when an Emperor heard of her and wanted to marry her. However, she too rejects his offer and tells him that she was not of that country. Around two years passed, then every time there was a full-moon she would cry because she would have to leave Earth soon. So, she soon reveals to her earth parents that she is actually from the moon, and that it was her time to go back to Tsuki-no-Miyako, or the Capital of the Moon. So, that night that the moon people were to come back, the Emperor had guards surrounding her house to keep the moon people away. However when they came they left a great light of blindness on the guards. Then Kaguya left her earth parents a note and her robe. Then as she left a robe of feathers was put on her, and she soon forgot the sadness and compassion for her earth family and friends. Then the Emperor writes a letter to Kaguya and sends it to the highest mountain to burn it so that the distant princess may receive it. There he also ordered his men to burn the elixir of immortality. Mount Fuji was said to be named after this, because fuji means "immortality," and the Kanji characters for Mount Fuji actually means, "Mountain Abounding with Warriors" in which the Emperor's men went up.

Hanasaka Jiisan is another fairy tale. For this fairy tale it is about a childless couple who owns a dog named Shiro because he was white. Shiro was a very loyal dog to this couple because they were good people to him. One day Shiro had told the old man to dig in his garden for the had found treasure there. As the old man found gold coins, his greedy neighbor saw this and asked to borrow the dog. The old man found this odd because the greedy neighbor never treated the dog with respect and he was always tormenting the dog. However being such a good person he couldn't say no. So as the greedy neighbor took the dog out to the fields he forced the dog to sniff out if there was any treasures. The dog sniffed it out and the greedy neighbor only dug out trash. This had angered the greedy neighber, so he kills the dog without anyone knowing and buries him there next to the tree. So, as time went by the old man wanted his dog back and went to this neighbor's house. His neighbor confessed that he had killed his dog. So then the old man requested that he have the tree where the dog was buried. Then with the tree the old man made a mortar out of it. The old man and his wife decided to make mochi cake in remembrance of Shiro. To their amazement the wife made the mochi cakes then it started increasing in amount. This was their award from Shiro. After hearing this story, the greedy neighbor asked to borrow the mortar, but his cakes turns to dirt. Then, the neighbor became angered an threw it in the fire. The old man soon again wanted his mortar back, so he went to his neighbor's house, and the neighbor told him that he had burned it. So the old man took the ashes. With these ashes Shiro, asked him to spread it on dead trees since it was the middle of autumn. To his amazement, the tree bloomed into a beautiful cherry tree. Then one day a Daimyo heard of this story and asked him to come treat his dead tree. The neighbor hearing of this wanted to take the glory again. Then as he tried to make the trees blossom some of the ashes fell into the Daimyo face and nose, nearly choking him. Due to this the greedy neighbor was sent to jail. The title of this story means "the old man who made withered trees to flowers."

The last story is called "Tsuru No Ongaeshi." I read different versions of this story. The story is frequently told of a old couple, and another version is about a young man. Anyways, the story is bascially the same setting, but I think I'm going to tell of the story of the young man. The crane just wanted to return its favor by becomine the daughter of the couple in one version and the wife of the young man in the other verison. The story starts off with the young man walking home in the snow when he came across a crane stuck in a trap meant for ducks. The young man decides to help the crane free. Then at night when he got home, there was a knock on the door which turns out to be a beautiful woman. The woman requestes to sleep there for the night. Then in the morning she asks him if she could stay, and they become husband and wife. Then the wife asks her husband if she could weave, but her only request was to not watch her weave. Then when she was finished she gave the cloth to him and told him to go sell it in the market, and buy more yarn. When he was selling the cloth, it raised many eyes because the cloth looked like a real crance. As told so, he sold it and bought more yarn. Later the wife began to start weaving again, but then in the afternoon the loom was silent, so he decided to check on his wife. Then there he finds a crane with its breast and sides nearly plucked bare. The wife tells him that since he knows her true identity, then it was time for her to leave. Then she flies away, but in a moment later she drops him a comb to remind him of her long black hair. There are actually two different English titles for this story. One is called "The Crane Wife" and the other is called "The Crane that Returned the Favor."

I think that the Japanese folktales really do share a lot of it's cultural style into it. Also there are a lot of Japanese folktales that tells of its history. For example in the story of Kaguya Hime, it tells of the how Mount Fuji got its name. If you look deep enough into the story, then there is always some moral that lies within. In the story Hanasaka Jiisan, there was a big moral in it, and it tells that the good will be rewarded in the end. The folktales are really a big part in the Japanese culture. It tells of how things start, and it tells about the legends and myths.