The Japanese Fairy Book

By Yei Theodora Ozaki

The original classic collection where a biracial Japanese woman made her adopted homeland's fairy tales her own.

 

Yei Theodora Ozaki had a 19th-century British upbringing, but embraced her Eastern heritage once she moved to Japan at sixteen. Refusing to marry, she made her own way and fell in love with the folklore of her new home. The Japanese Fairy Book became the first of many collections she adapted to bridge her two cultures and share these treasured stories with the English-speaking world.

 

Marvel at the Dragon King and his palace under the sea.

 

Awe over Princess Moonlight outwitting every would-be suitor to stay with her elderly foster parents.

 

Cheer on Momotaro, the boy born from a peach who fights ogres with his trusty animal companions.

 

Explore the age of giants and gods with wise Empress Jokwa as she defends her kingdom from a tyrannical wizard.

 

Whimsical and tragic, epic and frightening, Ozaki's translations of cunning creatures, brave samurai, royal dramas, and folk adventures from a bygone era will enchant readers of any age.

 

Immerse yourself in this fresh edition of one bold woman's vision of her country's beloved fairy tales today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WordFire Press
• Release date: May 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781680575088

Book preview

The Japanese Fairy Book

THE JAPANESE FAIRY BOOK

YEA THEODORA OZAKI

Foreword by

PAUL DI FILIPPO

Edited by

BRIANNON HOLIFER

WordFire Press

The Japanese Fairy Book, by Yei Theodora Ozaki

Originally published in 1903. This work is in the public domain.

This new edition edited by Briannon Holifer

Foreword copyright © 2023 by Paul Di Filippo

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share the ebook edition with any other person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-508-8

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-509-5

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68057-510-1

Illustrations by Kakuzo Fujiyama, in the public domain and originally published in 1903.

Cover design by Briannon Holifer and Allyson Longueira

Cover artwork image by helen_f | Adobe Stock

Published by WordFire Press, LLC

PO Box 1840 Monument CO 80132

Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

WordFire Press Edition 2023

Printed in the USA

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CONTENTS

All the Fiercest Demons Wear Tiger-Skin Trousers

Preface

My Lord Bag of Rice

The Tongue-Cut Sparrow

The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad

The Farmer and the Badger

The Shinansha, or the South Pointing Carriage

The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy

The Story of Princess Hase

The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die

The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child

The Mirror of Matsuyama

The Goblin of Adachigahara

The Sagacious Monkey and the Boar

The Happy Hunter and the Skilful Fisher

The Story of the Old Man Who Made Withered Trees to Flower

The Jelly Fish and the Monkey

The Quarrel of the Monkey and the Crab

The White Hare and the Crocodiles

The Story of Prince Yamato Take

Momotaro, or the Story of the Son of a Peach

The Ogre of Rashomon

How an Old Man Lost His Wen

The Stones of Five Colours and the Empress Jokwa

Publisher’s Note

About the Author

About the Editor

WordFire Classics

ALL THE FIERCEST DEMONS WEAR TIGER-SKIN TROUSERS

FOREWORD BY PAUL DI FILIPPO

If you ever chance to visit Washington, DC during cherry-blossom time, you will be enjoying an arboreal esthetic experience which conceals many subtextual layers of politics, trade, and cultural exchange. The history of the establishment of those trees, in short, is this: in 1907, William Howard Taft, then Secretary of War under President Roosevelt, visited Japan, accompanied by his wife. Mrs. Taft had already seen to the initial planting of some native decorative cherry trees in the US capital, and was pleased to learn that Yukio Ozaki, the Mayor of Tokyo (or Tokio, as it was then charmingly called by Anglophones), now planned to gift the US with 3000 more, as a token of international friendship. After taking time to mature, the trees arrived in 1910, were unfortunately found to be diseased, but were generously replaced by 3000 others from Japan in 1912.

That’s the broad outline of how cherry trees came from Tokyo to Washington. But one thing that this synopsis neglects—an alluring literary angle—is that the whole process was observed, endorsed and perhaps, I daresay, even fostered and facilitated to some extent by the Mayor’s wife, an intriguing person named Yei Theodora Ozaki (1870-1932). Mrs. Ozaki (Ozaki coincidentally happened to be her maiden name as well as the one she acquired by marriage) was a fascinating figure whose first publication, The Japanese Fairy Book (1903), you now hold in your hands. Before we delve into her biography and the charming and thrilling contents of her book, let’s finish the tale of the cherry trees.

Yei Theodora was involved in every step of the gift, and, with her writerly eye, captured one tragicomic moment. Here’s a snippet from a letter that she wrote to Mrs. Taft, as reprinted in the Washington Evening Star for April 11, 1936:

When the secretary of the United States Embassy went to the City Hall and informed my husband of the unforeseen and unfortunate end of the cherry trees, the young man looked very uneasy and grave at having to announce such an untimely end to the first cherry trees. My husband smiled and said:

Oh, I believe your first President set the example of destroying cherry trees, didn't he?

There was a laugh and the secretary looked quite relieved!

This wry, evocative, telling anecdote, full of natural human emotions and a surprise twist, perfectly captures some of Yei Theodora’s magnificent writing abilities and narrative inclinations. Her book of fairy tales, myths, and legends consists not of straight translations of original Japanese texts, but rather of retellings, shaped according to her own literary intuitions. So we can discern in these narratives her own predilections and talents, not just the original intent of the anonymous bards.

Exactly how did Yei Theodora, born in England, reach the point of palling around with powerful politicians in the Pacific? It was a highly unusual journey.

Baron Saburō Ozaki was one of the first visiting Japanese citizens to chase his intellectual passions in the United Kingdom. He also seems to have chased one of his tutors, an Englishwoman named Bathia Catherine Morrison, for they were married in 1869. Their first daughter was our author, Yei Theodora. Two other girls followed, before the Baron had to return to Japan to attend to the little matter of fulfilling a prearranged marriage to one of his own countrywomen. Bathia and the Baron divorced in 1881, and in 1887, when Yei Theodora would have been still only in her teens, she went to Japan to live with Dad. Some years later, after disagreeing with Pop about the advisability and desirability of her own forced marriage, she struck out on her own. The next few years saw her earning a living as tutor, secretary, and traveling companion to one Mary Fraser. This last-named friend saw in Yei Theodora the makings of a fine writer, and encouraged her to submit her work to various UK magazines. After some success in those venues came the book now under our consideration. Shortly thereafter, she met Mayor Yukio Ozaki, they married, and Yei Theodora became a mother herself. Alas, she lived only until the age of sixty-one. Her final voyage replicated her first one, for although she died in London, her remains were repatriated to Japan.

As a cosmopolitan, biracial, bilingual woman, Yei Theodora must have encountered barriers of prejudice and suspicion in both in the UK and Japan, yet she seems to have plowed straight on, unfazed. Her residency in the mid-to-high strata of society must have smoothed things a bit. Perhaps she also made the most of her exotic heritage. This was, after all, the era of a seductive Orientalism, when a cultural production such as Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado (1885) could enrapture Westerners. The headline-grabbing news of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) would also have helped the subsequent editions of her books.

In any case, by producing her books, Yei Theodora was patently honoring both strains of her ancestry. She was promulgating and disseminating her father’s cultural touchstones of the Far East, while also entertaining and enlightening her mother’s tribe (and Americans too). A win-win situation. And her first book fit neatly into the then-current rage for fairy tales, as exemplified in the work of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors. (Yei Theodora credits Lang in her preface for inspiration.)

What was her methodology in porting over these tales? She explains in her introduction to her second book, Warriors of Old Japan:

In picturesqueness of conception Japanese stories yield the palm to none. And they are rich in quaint expressions and dainty conceits. But they are apt to be written in a style almost too bald. This defect the professional story-teller remedies by colouring his story as he tells it. In the same way I have tried to brighten the rather bare structure of a story, where it seemed to need such treatment, with touches of local colour in order to give emphasis to the narrative, and at the same time make the story more attractive to the foreign reader. Whether I have succeeded or not, the reader must judge for himself. I shall be satisfied if in some small measure I have been able to do for Japanese folk-lore what Andrew Lang has done for folk-lore in general…

The result of Yei Theodora’s painstaking and inventive and joyful labors are a set of fables that remain timeless, rewarding to both young and old. The amount of pure entertainment in this collection is huge. Reading these tales today, one feels that one is tapping into some truly ancient sources—but also that one is experiencing the unique interpolative nuances and touches of a bright Edwardian artist. The purity of the archetypes on display is far removed from the products of the commodified fantasy market of today, and yet one can discern certain motifs that have functioned as the seeds of contemporary fantasy. We even get, in The Stones of Five Colours and the Empress Jokwa, a scenario of giants and gems that the MCU’s Thanos would envy.

Nearly two-dozen tales are filled with warfare and domesticity, history and legend, humor and tragedy, politics and art, characters low-born and high-born, urban and rural venues, and vibrant personages from the animal, human, and supernatural realms. Yei Theodora’s prose is elegant without being rococo. Her narrative drive is unfaltering, and she always devotes precisely the right amount of lines to characterization and setting. Although the cast is continually changing, one figure repeats across a few stories, and that is Rin Jin, the dragon lord under the sea. A kind of Falstaffian demiurge, he operates like an Oberon as the engine of the occult world

Also to her credit, our author refrains from moralizing or being educational, succumbing only once, in The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad, which concludes thus: Little children, never be disobedient to those who are wiser than you, for disobedience is the beginning of all the miseries and sorrows of life. It’s a momentary lapse in a literary world that is otherwise more sophisticated about cause and effect, rewards and punishments.

Yei Theodora does not mollycoddle her audience, and while many of these tales end with a happily ever after, an equal number come to a less joyous closure. But, alas! in this world nothing lasts for ever. Even the moon is not always perfect in shape, but loses its roundness with time, and flowers bloom and then fade. So at last the happiness of this family was broken up by a great sorrow. The good and gentle wife and mother was one day taken ill.

One of Yei Theodora’s most captivating features is her droll, wry humor. There are overt instances of this, such as when certain trickster figures serve others with a satirical or absurdist comeuppance. But other instances are more organic and subtle.

The horned demons looking up and only seeing a pheasant, laughed and said:

A wild pheasant, indeed! It is ridiculous to hear such words from a mean thing like you. Wait till you get a blow from one of our iron bars!

Very angry, indeed, were the devils. They shook their horns and their shocks of red hair fiercely, and rushed to put on tiger skin trousers to make themselves look more terrible. They then brought out great iron bars and ran to where the pheasant perched over their heads and tried to knock him down. The pheasant flew to one side to escape the blow, and then attacked the head of first one and then another demon. He flew round and round them, beating the air with his wings so fiercely and ceaselessly, that the devils began to wonder whether they had to fight one or many more birds.

That scene could have easily constituted one of the lighter moments in a Miyazaki film.

Adult readers aware of Yei Theodora’s own biography will inevitably be tempted to look for hidden touchstones of her personal life. Given the abandonment of her family by the Baron, one might suspect that fathers and husbands would come in for a dig or two. But they generally do not. The roster of happy and devoted couples in these tales is long and unbroken. Perhaps this stems from Yei Theodora merely being faithful to her original material. And yet she made the selection of stories. But in one case, what might be some lingering sadness or disappointment or even anger breaks through. That happens in The Story of Prince Yamato Take. Here, the noble and brave warrior reveals one dreadful flaw.

In these dangers and adventures he had been followed by his faithful loving wife the Princess Ototachibana. For his sake she counted the weariness of the long journeys and the dangers of war as nothing, and her love for her warrior husband was so great that she felt well repaid for all her wanderings if she could but hand him his sword when he sallied forth to battle, or minister to his wants when he returned weary to the camp.

But the heart of the Prince was full of war and conquest and he cared little for the faithful Ototachibana. From long exposure in travelling, and from care and grief at her lord's coldness to her, her beauty had faded, and her ivory skin was burnt brown by the sun, and the Prince told her one day that her place was in the palace behind the screens at home and not with him upon the warpath. But in spite of rebuffs and indifference on her husband's part, Ototachibana could not find it in her heart to leave him. But perhaps it would have been better for her if she had done so, for on the way to Idzu, when they came to Owari, her heart was well nigh broken.

Here dwelt in a palace shaded by pine-trees and approached by imposing gates, the Princess Miyadzu, beautiful as the cherry blossom in the blushing dawn of a spring morning…

Yamato Take takes up with the Princess, disdaining his wife, and yet she remains loyal, ultimately sacrificing herself so that her husband may live. Yamato Take’s only redemptive move comes too late, when he ultimately acknowledges his sins, even though his wife is beyond his palliation or remorse.

In The Happy Hunter and the Skilful Fisher, Rin Jin the Dragon King greets his human guest with this delightful imperative: Condescend to remember us for ever! Thanks to the dedication, skills, insights, ambition, and general zest for living deployed by Yei Theodora Ozaki, Rin Jin’s urgings stand a good chance of being honored by generation after generation of new readers.

PREFACE

This collection of Japanese fairy tales is the outcome of a suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from the modern version written by Sadanami Sanjin. These stories are not literal translations, and though the Japanese story and all quaint Japanese expressions have been faithfully preserved, they have been told more with the view to interest young readers of the West than the technical student of folk-lore.

Grateful acknowledgement is due to Mr. Y. Yasuoka, Miss Fusa Okamoto, my brother Nobumori Ozaki, Dr. Yoshihiro Takaki, and Miss Kameko Yamao, who have helped me with translations.

The story which I have named The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die is taken from a little book written a hundred years ago by one Shinsui Tamenaga. It is named Chosei Furo, or Longevity. The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moon-Child is taken from the classic Taketari Monogatari, and is not classed by the Japanese among their fairy tales, though it really belongs to this class of literature.

The pictures were drawn by Mr. Kakuzo Fujiyama, a Tokio artist.

In telling these stories in English I have followed my fancy in adding such touches of local colour or description as they seemed to need or as pleased me, and in one or two instances I have gathered in an incident from another version. At all times, among my friends, both young and old, English or American, I have always found eager listeners to the beautiful legends and fairy tales of Japan, and in telling them I have also found that they were still unknown to the vast majority, and this has encouraged me to write them for the children of the West.

Y.T.O.

Tokio, 1903

To Eleanor Marion-Crawford

I dedicate this book to you and the sweet child-friendship that you gave me in the days spent with you by the southern sea, when you used to listen with unfeigned pleasure to these fairy stories from far Japan. May they now remind you of my changeless love and remembrance.

Y.T.O.

Tokio, 1903

MY LORD BAG OF RICE

Long, long ago there lived in Japan a brave warrior known to all as Tawara Toda, or My Lord Bag of Rice. His true name was Fujiwara Hidesato, and there is a very interesting story of how he came to change his name.

One day he sallied forth in search of adventures, for he had the nature of a warrior and could not bear to be idle. So he buckled on his two swords, took his huge bow, much taller than himself, in his hand, and slinging his quiver on his back started out. He had not gone far when he came to the bridge of Seta-no-Karashi spanning one end of the beautiful Lake Biwa. No sooner had he set foot on the bridge than he saw lying right across his path a huge serpent-dragon. Its body was so big that it looked like the trunk of a large pine tree, and it took up the whole width of the bridge. One of its huge claws rested on the parapet of one side of the bridge, while its tail lay right against the other. The monster seemed to be asleep, and as it breathed, fire and smoke came out of its nostrils.

At first Hidesato could not help feeling alarmed at the sight of this horrible reptile lying in his path, for he must either turn back or walk right over its body. He was a brave man, however, and putting aside all fear went forward dauntlessly. Crunch, crunch! He stepped now on the dragon’s body, now between its coils, and without even one glance backward he went on his way.

Putting aside all fear, he went forward dauntlessly.

He had only gone a few steps when he heard someone calling him from behind. On turning back, he was much surprised to see that the monster dragon had entirely disappeared and in its place was a strange-looking man, who was bowing most ceremoniously to the ground. His red hair streamed over his shoulders and was surmounted by a crown in the shape of a dragon’s head, and his sea-green dress was patterned with shells. Hidesato knew at once that this was no ordinary mortal and he wondered much at the strange occurrence. Where had the dragon gone in such a short space of time? Or had it transformed itself into this man, and what did the whole thing mean? While these thoughts passed through his mind he had come up to the man on the bridge and now addressed him:

Was it you that called me just now?

Yes, it was I, answered the man. I have an earnest request to make to you. Do you think you can grant it to me?

If it is in my power to do so I will, answered Hidesato, but first tell me who you are?

I am the Dragon King of the Lake, and my home is in these waters just under this bridge.

And what is it you have to ask of me? said Hidesato.

I want you to kill my mortal enemy the centipede, who lives on the mountain beyond. And the Dragon King pointed to a high peak on the opposite shore of the lake.

I have lived now for many years in this lake, and I have a large family of children and grandchildren. For some time past we have lived in terror, for a monster centipede has discovered our home, and night after night it comes and carries off one of my family. I am powerless to save them. If it goes on much longer like this, not only shall I lose all my children, but I myself must fall a victim to the monster. I am, therefore, very unhappy, and in my extremity I determined to ask the help of a human being. For many days with this intention I have waited on the bridge in the shape of the horrible serpent-dragon that you saw, in the hope that some strong brave man would come along. But all who came this way, as soon as they saw me, were terrified and ran away as fast as they could. You are the first man I have found able to look at me without fear, so I knew at once that you were a man of great courage. I beg you to have pity upon me. Will you not help me and kill my enemy the centipede?

Hidesato felt very sorry for the Dragon King on hearing his story, and readily promised to do what he could to help him. The warrior asked where the centipede lived, so that he might attack the creature at once. The Dragon King replied that its home was on the mountain Mikami, but that as it came every night at a certain hour to the palace of the lake, it would be better to wait till then. So Hidesato was conducted to the