Folk Legends of Japan (30 page)

KITCHOMU FOOLS HIS NEIGHBOR

Similar trickeries are cited wider Motif K330, "Means of hoodwinking the guardian or owner."

Text from Sempo Nakata, "Kitchomu Banashi,"
Tabi to Densetsu, J
(April, 1928), pp. 72-73, no. 35.

K
ITCHOMU
was short of money and went to his neighbor to borrow some. The greedy neighbor said: "I have some money to save, but I have no money to lend." Kitchomu thought he was a nasty fellow, but he did not cry out in anger. He said: "Well then, I want to borrow from you, but how do you make money? You will have trouble to keep it safe. It may be burned by fire or it may be stolen by thieves." The neighbor said: "You don't need to worry about it. I am always thinking about it myself." "I am sorry to have taken your time," said Kitchomu and went out.

Eager to find out where his neighbor kept his money, Kitchomu peeped through the fence when it became dark. The neighbor came out into the garden and dug up the ground and there he buried his money. When he had done this he said: "May the money increase as the sand increases. May the money appear as a snake to the eyes of other people." Kitchomu, who saw this, was pleased. "I've heard a good thing." Next day he went to the mountain and caught many snakes. Late that night he stole into his neighbor's garden and dug up the ground. He dug up all the money that the neighbor had put there and buried the snakes in place of the money.

Two or three days later the neighbor, who did not know this, went there to bury more money which he had accumulated. When he dug up the ground, he found no money but a great many snakes. He cried out in surprise: "It's me. Have you forgotten me?" But the snakes did not turn to money.

WHEW!

Comparable examples of "The forgetful fool" are given under Motif J2671. The collector of the tradition below writes: "There is a hot spring resort called Hinatayama in Aira-gun, Kagoshima-ken. Once there lived there a small man named Hikobei Tokuda. However the people did not call him Hikobei-san nor Hiko-san but Shuju-don (Master Dwarf). This Shuju-don lived a very humorous life and left many funny tales behind him. Whether he was a true character or not is a question."

Text from Sempo Nakata, "Shuju Banashi at Hinatayama,"
Tabi to Densetsu, /
(June, 192SJ, pp. 85-86, no. 6.

Note:
Dango
is here rendered as "dumpling," and
hentokose
as "whew!" This latter term is a Kyushu dialect exclamation used when completing a heavy task, similar to Tokyo's
dokkoisho.

O
NE DAY
Shuju was invited to dinner by his uncle. "Uncle, uncle," said! Shuju during the course of the dinner, "this is very delicious. What do you call it?"

"Don't you know?" said the uncle laughing. "That's called a dump-ling." Not wanting to forget the name, as Shuju walked home he kept saying: "Dumpling, dumpling." Along the way he came to a steep, difficult slope filled with large boulders. When he was finally at the bottom of the slope, he said: "Whew! Whew!" Then he walked on, saying "Whew, whew" all the way home.

"I'm back," he called to his wife. "Make me some whews."

His wife was surprised at these sudden words. "What's a whew?" she asked. "I don't know such a thing."

"I ate a whew at Uncle's. It was called a whew, and I want to eat one now. You ought to know about such things as whews. Do you understand?"

"No, I don't. There's no such food as a whew—not in Japan, and not in China, and not in India either."

"What a stupid woman! A woman like this is no good as a wife." And Shuju picked up the bamboo fire-blower that was at his hand and hit his wife's forehead with it.

"Ouch! You hit me too hard," the wife cried, rubbing her forehead. "Look, it's made a lump as big as a dumpling!"

When Shuju heard this, he cried: "That's it!—dumpling, dumpling."

THE WIT OF NIEMONEN

Niemonen here perpetuates various traditional deceptions. Motif K111.1, "Alleged gold-dropping animal sold," is reported from eleven districts offapan (Ikeda,p. 290). An example is in Yanagita-Mayer,
Japanese Folk Tales,
pp. 263-64, no. 91, "Tankuro and Takuro." Other motifs present are K1828, "Disguise as deity," reported from Africa; K236, "Literal payment of debt (not real)"; K1950, "Sham prowess."

Text from
Shimane-ken Kohi Densetsu Shu,
Hikawa-gun, p. 26.

Notes: The Higan Festival, March 18-24, during which people visit the family tombs and hold Buddhist services for the dead. The Bon Festival, customarily August 15, a major Buddhist rite celebrated in each family for the ancestral spirits. The fact that Niemonen dresses in white in the last story causes the people to mistake him for a Buddhist deity.

1. H
E
O
UTWITS A
G
OD.
Niemonen visited a temple one day during the Higan Festival and put some money in the offering box. After he had worshiped the god, he again put his hand in the box. And when he drew his hand forth the money which he had dropped into the box came back to him, because he had tied the money to a string. He said that he might as well do that because the god had no use for money.

Another time he fell sick and visited a shrine to pray for better health. He said to the god: "If I am healed by your mercy, I shall offer a metal torii to your shrine." He recovered soon. Then he made a model of a torii from needles and offered it to the shrine.

2. H
E
C
ARRIES A
G
REAT
R
OCK.
There was a rock so huge that it could not be carried by twenty or thirty men. Niemonen said he would carry it by himself if the people would do as he told them. The young men thought it a joke, but they agreed to humor Niemonen. They secured a big rope, in accordance with Niemonen's instructions, and looped it around the rock. Niemonen grasped the rope's end and said to the young men: "Raise this rock with all your might." The young men said they could not raise it. Then Niemonen declared: "If you don't do as I tell you, I will not carry the rock."

3. H
E
K
NOWS ABOUT A
D
ISTANT
F
IRE.
One time when Niemonen was visiting in Osaka he cried out: "Oh, my house in the country is burning!" The people said that he could not see a fire at such a distant place, but he insisted that he was sure of it. They argued earnestly and at last decided to wager five hundred gold pieces.

About ten days afterward, a message came from Niemonen's wife in the country. It said that his house and all his belongings had been consumed by fire on such and such a date. The date coincided exactly with that of Niemonen's assertion. So Niemonen won the wager.

The reason he knew about the fire was that, before he left the country, he had told his wife to set the house on fire on that particular day.

4. T
HE
H
ORSE
THAT
D
ROPPED
G
OLDEN
F
ECES.
Niemonen fed his horse hay mixed with coins every day. The horse dropped the coins in his feces. So Niemonen sold the horse for four hundred gold pieces to his greedy brother.

5. T
HE
S
ECOND
B
ON
F
ESTIVAL.
One night while Niemonen was in Osaka he dressed in a white garment and rode a horse around town, ringing a bell and announcing to the people: "I could not visit you during the Bon Festival, but I have come now so you must hold the festival once more, or else you shall meet disaster."

So the people made preparations for a second festival, but they were taken on such short notice that the Bon flowers soon ran out. Then Niemonen sold branches of the flowers which he had brought by boat from his district, and made a great deal of money.

BOASTER'S WIT

The theme of "Lying contests," Motif X905, is known in Italy, India, and the United States.

Text from Sempo Nakata, "Ichibei Banashi,"
Tabi to Densetsu,
III (May, 1930), 75-76, no. 28.

Note: Sorori Shinzaemon, a famous wit who was an adviser to the first Tokugawa shogun.

O
NE WINTER EVENING
the young men of a certain village met together to have a boasting contest. Each wanted to win the big prize, and they tried hard to think of wonderful boasts. One of them went out on the pretext of urinating. Once outside, he went to Ichibei's house and called out: "Ichibei-san, please lend me your wit." "What do you want?" Ichibei asked, knocking the ashes from his pipe into the palm of his hand and looking up into the young man's face. "I want you to tell me the biggest boast." "The biggest boast? Why, that's easy. When someone asks 'How is your father?' you just say: 'The people of Suruga have pushed Mt. Fuji so hard that it has bent toward Koshu; so my father has gone to prop it up with an incense stick.'" "Thank you very much," said the young man. "Surely this will be the winning boast."

No sooner had the first young man left than another one came, named Kumako, to borrow Ichibei's wit. "Are you in?" he called. "Here I am," said Ichibei. "I have something to ask you; please tell me a big boast." Ichibei answered with a knowing look: "Yes, yes, that's easy. When someone asks 'How is your father?' you just say. 'It rains too much because there's a hole in the sky; so my father has gone to plug up the hole with the skin of a louse.'" "Thank you indeed," said Kumako, very pleased. "That's a wonderful boast. Sorori Shinzaemon himself could not do better."

No sooner had Kumako gone than Hachiko came in. "Ichibei-san, please tell me a big boast." Ichibei promptly answered: "Yes, yes. When you're asked 'How is your father?' you just say: 'My father sat on Mt. Fuji and put the blue sky over his head, but his ears were left out.'" Hachiko was very happy with this. "That's good! Surely I'll win first prize with it."

After Hachiko had gone, Ichibei laughed and said: "Well, then, who'll decide which of those is the biggest boast?"

BOASTING OF ONE'S OWN REGION

This is another play on the lying contest, where the biggest lie includes the other lies, as in Motif X1423.1, the lie of the great cabbage, which is topped by a lie of a great pot large enough to hold the cabbage. Anesaki, pp. 339-40, relates a serious legend of a giant chestnut tree in Omi-ken whose branches spread such a distance that its nuts fell many miles away.

Text from
Mukashi-banashi,
pp. 62-63.

O
NCE A MAN
from Ise, a man from Mino, a man from Mikawa, and a man from Otsu put up at the same lodging. The man from Ise said that the Ise Shrine had eighty branch shrines and that all those small shrines stood under the branches of a single big tree which stretched out one league in every direction.

Then the man from Mino said: "That's a very wonderful story, but in Mino there is a big ox-skin which covers one square league."

The man from Otsu boasted that in his region there was a potato vine which covered a square league.

The man from Mikawa, who had been listening quietly to the others, said: "There's a big drum in my home district. Its body is made from the big tree of Ise which stretches a league in each direction, and it is covered by the ox-skin of Mino that is one league square, and it is tied with the potato vine of Otsu that covers a square league. And when you beat this drum, it sounds all the way to the eighty branch-shrines of Ise."

So the other men were defeated.

THE OLD MAN WHO BROKE WIND

This extremely popular Japanese folk tale has been collected in 101 versions. Some go into comic detail on the old man's choosiness in picking a spot to demonstrate his wind-breaking talent before the lord; he finds a straw mat too slippery, the road too sandy, demands a silk comforter, or climbs upon the lord. Ikeda analyzes the versions, pp. 150-53, under Type 480F, "Fancy Passing of Air." The
Minzokugaku Jiten
calls this tale-type
Take-kiri Jijii
(Story of Musical Wind-Breaking). A tremendous wind-breaker who blows down walls and frightens tigers is "General Pumpkin" in Zong In-Sob,
Folk Tales from Korea
(London, 1952), pp. 66-68.

Text from
Mukashi-banashi Kenkyu,
I (1935), p. 73. Collected by Eiichiro Iwakura, from Minami Kambara-gun, Niigata-ken.

Note:
Goyo no takara matsu,
"five-needle treasure pine"; the other sounds are onomatopoetic.