Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan

ANCIENT TALES AND FOLK-LORE OF JAPAN
by Richard Gordon Smith
London, A. & C. Black
[1918]
NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION
Scanned at sacred-texts.com, February 2006. Edited and Proofed by
John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States
because it was published prior to January 1st, 1923. These files may be
used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of
attribution is left intact in all copies.
TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR ERNEST MASON SATOW,
K.C.M.G. IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIS KINDNESS IN JAPAN
Preface
THE stories in this volume are transcribed from voluminous illustrated
diaries which have been kept by me for some twenty years spent in
travel and in sport in many lands--the last nine of them almost entirely
in Japan, while collecting subjects of natural history for the British
Museum; trawling and dredging in the Inland Sea, sometimes with
success, sometimes without, but in the end contributing to the treasury
some fifty things new to Science, and, according to Sir Edwin Ray
Lankester, 'adding greatly to the knowledge of Japanese Ethnology.' As
may be supposed, such a life has brought me into close contact with the
people--the fisher, the farmer, the priest, the doctor, the children, and
all others from whom there is a possibility of extracting information.
Many and weird are the tales I have been told. In this volume the

Publishers prefer to have a mixture--stories of Mountains, of Trees, of
Flowers, of Places in History, and Legends. For the general results
obtained in my diaries I have to thank our late Minister in Tokio, Sir
Ernest Satow; the Ministers and Vice-Ministers of Foreign Affairs and
of Agriculture, who gave me many letters of introduction; my dear
friend Mr. Hattori, Governor of Hiogo Prefecture; the translators of the
original notes and manuscripts (often roughly written in Japanese),
among whom are Mr. Ando, Mr. Matsuzaki, and Mr. Watanabe; and
Mr. Mo-No-Yuki, who drew and painted the illustrations from sketches
of my own, which must often have grated on his artistic ideas, keeping
him awake in reflection on the crudeness of the European sense of art.
To my faithful interpreter Yuki Egawa also are due my thanks for
continual efforts to find what I wanted; and to many Japanese peasants
and fishermen, whose good-nature, kindness, and hospitality have
endeared them to me for ever. Well is it that they, so worthy a people,
have so worthy a Sovereign.
R. GORDON SMITH.
June 1908.
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2. The Spirit of O Ko appears to Konojo as O Kei San
ANCIENT TALES AND FOLKLORE OF JAPAN I
THE GOLDEN HAIRPINÂ 1
UP in the northern city of Sendai, whence come the best of Japanese
soldiers, there lived a samurai named Hasunuma.
Hasunuma was rich and hospitable, and consequently much thought of
and well liked. Some thirty-five years ago his wife presented him with
a beautiful daughter, their first child, whom they called 'Ko,' which

means 'Small' when applied to a child, much as we say 'Little Mary or
Little Jane.' Her full name was really 'Hasu-ko,' which means 'Little
Lily'; but here we will call her 'Ko' for short.
Exactly on the same date, 'Saito,' one of Hasunuma's friends and also a
samurai, had the good fortune to have a son. The fathers decided that,
being such old friends, they would wed their children to each other
when old enough to marry; they were very happy over the idea, and so
were their wives. To make the engagement of the babies more binding,
Saito handed to Hasunuma a golden hairpin which had long been in his
family, and said:
'Here, my old friend, take this pin. It shall be a token of betrothal from
my son, whose name shall be KÅnojÅ, to your little daughter Ko, both
of whom are now aged two weeks only. May they live long and happy
lives together.'
Hasunuma took the pin, and handed it to his wife to keep; then they
drank saké to the health of each other, and to the bride and
bridegroom of some twenty years thence.
A few months after this Saito, in some way, caused displeasure to his
feudal lord, and, being dismissed from service, left Sendai with his
family--whither no one knew.
Seventeen years later O Ko San was, with one exception, the most
beautiful girl in all Sendai; the exception was her sister, O Kei, just a
year younger, and as beautiful as herself.
Many were the suitors for O Ko's hand; but she would have none of
them, being faithful to the engagement made for her by her father when
she was a baby. True, she had never seen her betrothed, and (which
seemed more curious) neither she nor her family had ever once heard of
the Saito family since they had