Reading Notes: Japanese Fairy Tales - Lang Part B

(Photo from Mother Nature Network)

Schippeitaro - This is a different version of The Phantom Cats story that I read last week. It is similar, except instead of a samurai in the forrest, it is a Japanese boy who has reached adulthood, and they called the cat monster The Spirit of The Mountain.

The Magic Kettle - A man living in the mountains finds an old iron kettle that he hadn't seen in years, cleaned it and decided to replace his falling apart kettle with it. When he boils water, the kettle changes shape and becomes a tanuki (a Japanese raccoon dog). It ran around his house, climbing the walls and the ceiling, making the old man crazy, so he had his neighbor come over to help him catch it. They locked it in a trunk and try to sell it to a tradesman, Jimmu, but the trunk is empty, so the old man sells him the kettle instead. In the night, Jimmu hears noises and finds a tanuki running around. In the morning only the kettle is there. His neighbor tells him he should travel with it and show it off to get rich. None of it brought him any happiness, so he returned the kettle and gave some of the money to the old man. 

It might be fun if Akira had a magic coffee pot.

Uraschimataro - a young fisherman catches a small turtle. The turtle begs for its life and promises to repay him someday. Years later, Uraschimataro's boat gets destroyed and he is swimming for shore when he sees a huge turtle. It tells him it's the one he saved and offers to take him the rest of the way back to land. He saw on the turtle's back for 3 days and then they reached the palace of the sea god. The turtle tells him she's the first waiting maid of the sea princes Otohime. The princess fell in love with him instantly and begged him to stay. Eventually he misses his parents and wants to visit them. Otohime says if he goes he will never come back. She gives him a golden box and tells him never to open it, and if he doesn't the turtle will bring him back to her. While he was gone, his parents had died. He opens the box, and purple mist comes out and turns him into an old man. He tries to call the turtle, but it doesn't come, and he dies.



Japanese Fairy Tales from The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang. Web Source.