Japanese Fairy World. William Elliot Griffis

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       William Elliot Griffis

      Japanese Fairy World

      Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664625434

Table of Contents

       PREFACE.

       THE MEETING OF THE STAR-LOVERS.

       THE TRAVELS OF TWO FROGS.

       THE CHILD OF THE THUNDER.

       THE TONGUE-CUT SPARROW.

       THE FIRE-FLY'S LOVERS.

       THE BATTLE OF THE APE AND THE CRAB.

       THE WONDERFUL TEA-KETTLE.

       PEACH-PRINCE, AND THE TREASURE ISLAND.

       THE FOX AND THE BADGER.

       THE SEVEN PATRONS OF HAPPINESS.

       DAIKOKU AND THE ONI.

       BENKEI AND THE BELL.

       LITTLE SILVER'S DREAM OF THE SHOJI.

       THE TENGUS, OR THE ELVES WITH LONG NOSES.

       KINTARO, OR THE WILD BABY.

       JIRAIYA, OR THE MAGIC FROG.

       HOW THE JELLY-FISH LOST ITS SHELL.

       LORD CUTTLE-FISH GIVES A CONCERT.

       YORIMASA, THE BRAVE ARCHER.

       WATANABE CUTS OFF THE ONI'S ARM.

       WATANABE KILLS THE GREAT SPIDER.

       RAIKO AND THE SHI-TEN DOJI.

       THE SAZAYE AND THE TAI.

       SMELLS AND JINGLES.

       THE LAKE OF THE LUTE AND THE MATCHLESS MOUNTAIN.

       THE WATERFALL OF YORO, OR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

       THE EARTHQUAKE FISH.

       THE DREAM STORY OF GOJIRO.

       THE PROCESSION OF LORD LONG-LEGS.

       KIYOHIME, OR THE POWER OF LOVE.

       THE FISHERMAN AND THE MOON-MAIDEN.

       THE JEWELS OF THE EBBING AND THE FLOWING TIDE.

       KAI RIU O, THE DRAGON KING OF THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA.

       THE CREATION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.

       HOW THE SUN GODDESS WAS ENTICED OUT OF HER CAVE.

PREFACE.

       Table of Contents

      The thirty-four stories included within this volume do not illustrate the bloody, revengeful or licentious elements, with which Japanese popular, and juvenile literature is saturated. These have been carefully avoided.

      It is also rather with a view to the artistic, than to the literary, products of the imagination of Japan, that the selection has been made. From my first acquaintance, twelve years ago, with Japanese youth, I became an eager listener to their folk lore and fireside stories. When later, during a residence of nearly four years among the people, my eyes were opened to behold the wondrous fertility of invention, the wealth of literary, historic and classic allusion, of pun, myth and riddle, of heroic, wonder, and legendary lore in Japanese art, I at once set myself to find the source of the ideas expressed in bronze and porcelain, on lacquered cabinets, fans, and even crape paper napkins and tidies. Sometimes I discovered the originals of the artist's fancy in books, sometimes only in the mouths of the people and professional story-tellers. Some of these stories I first read on the tattooed limbs and bodies of the native foot-runners, others I first saw in flower-tableaux at the street floral shows of Tokio. Within this book the reader will find translations, condensations of whole books, of interminable romances, and a few sketches by the author embodying Japanese ideas, beliefs and superstitions. I have taken no more liberty, I think, with the native originals, than a modern story-teller of Tokio would himself take, were he talking in an American parlor, instead of at his bamboo-curtained stand in Yanagi Cho, (Willow Street,) in the mikado's capital.

      Some of the stories have appeared in English before, but most of them are printed for the first time. A few reappear from The Independent and other periodicals.

      The illustrations and cover-stamp, though engraved in New York by Mr. Henry W. Troy, were, with one exception, drawn especially for this work, by my artist-friend, Ozawa Nankoku, of Tokio. The picture of Yorimasa, the Archer, was made for me by one of my students