Preserving Timeless
Folktales for Generations

A Dead Secret: Folktale from Japan   A LONG time ago, in the province of Tamba, there lived a rich merchant named Ina muraya Gensuke. He had a daughter called O-Sono. As she was very clever and pretty, he thought it would be a pity to let her grow up with only such teaching as the country-teachers could give her: so he sent her, in care of some trusty attendants, to Kyoto, that she might

Mujina: Folktale from Japan ON the Akasaka Road, in Tokyo, there is a slope called Kii-no-kuni-zaka, which means the Slope of the Province of Kii. I do not know why it is called the Slope of the Province of Kii. On one side of this slope you see an ancient moat, deep and very wide, with high green banks rising up to some place of gardens; and on the other side of the road extend

Jikininki: Folktale from Japan ONCE, when Muso Kokushi, a priest of the Zen sect, was journeying alone through the province of Mino, he lost his way in a mountain-district where there was nobody to direct him. For a long time he wandered about helplessly; and he was beginning to despair of finding shelter for the night, when he perceived, on the top of a hill lighted by the last rays of the sun, one of

Diplomacy: Folktale from Japan IT had been ordered that the execution should take place in the garden of the yashiki. So the man was taken there, and made to kneel clown in a wide sanded space crossed by a line of tobi-iski, or stepping-stones, such as you may still see in Japanese landscape-gardens. His arms were bound behind him. Retainers brought water in buckets, and rice-bags filled with pebbles; and they packed the rice-bags round

The Story of O-Tei: Folktale from Japan A LONG time ago, in the town of Nii-gata, in the province of Echizen, there lived a man called Nagao Chosei. Nagao was the son of a physician, and was educated for his father’s profession. At an early age he had been betrothed to a girl called O-Tei, the daughter of one of his father’s friends; and both families had agreed that the wedding should take place as

Oshidori: Folktale from Japan THERE was a falconer and hunter, named Sonjo, who lived in the district called Tamura-no-Go, of the province of Mutsu. One day he went out hunting, and could not find any game. But on his way home, at a place called Akanuma, he perceived a pair of oshidori (mandarin ducks – From ancient time, in the Far East, these birds have been regarded as emblems of conjugal affection), swimming together in