Week 7 Reading Diary Continued: Japanese Fairy Tales (Lang)

Continued from Japanese Fairy Tales unit. Story source: The Violet Fairy Book by Andrew Lang and illustrated by H. J. Ford (1901).

Schippeitaro
Young boys had to go off into the world to prove themselves so this one boy went into a forest to find some great task to conquer. He got lost and slept at nigh in the forest chapel, big cats woke him at midnight talking of Schippeitaro. The next day he found a village and a girl crying because the next day she would be eater by the forest spirit. He decided that was his task and he ask of Schippeitaro- the kings large dog. He begged to borrow the dog and put him in the place of the girl the next day in a box in the chapel. The cats returned and the largest one, the spirit opened it to eat the girl but instead the dog bit him. The boy cut off his head and killed other cats as well. Now all the girls are safe and they celebrate the boy and dog.

The Crab and the Monkey
The crab had a nice hole for a home and there was some rice outside of it. She was bringing it inside when a monkey appeared and asked for a trade- some rice for a kaki kernel. The crab agreed. Later the monkey came by again and the crab gave him permission to climb in her kaki tree if he dropped her some fruit. He dropped the bad ones so she tricked him into doing a somersault which dropped the good ones from his pockets. Seeing he had been tricked he pummeled the crab almost to death. But her friends saved her and made a revenge plan. When the monkey came to apologize they hurt him and eventually killed him. The crab lived happily under the kaki until she died.

The Magic Kettle
A kettle appeared in a mans house and when he filled it with water and sat it on the hot stove in morfed into a cute creature called a tanuki. He was scared and didn't want it so he sold it to a tradesman. He too discoved it was tanuki and was given advice to show it to people for a price once he got the tanukis consent. So he did this and the tanuki would appear from the kettle on command and dance for/with people. Once he had made a fortune he still wasn't happy so he returned the kettle with a 100 gold pieces to the original owner. They both lived a happy, great, well respected life. This would be a fun story to retell, maybe as a how did the tanuki first come to be.

The kettle tanuki

How the Wicked Tanuki was Punished
Only a father tanuki and his son and his fox wife still lived in the forest but they were starving. The planned for the father to play dead while the mother changed to a human and sold him for food. He escaped later and they ate happily, but again they ran out. So they switched roles and the mother played dead while the father sold her. But he was greedy and didn't want to share with her so he told the buyer to really kill her. He got back to his son but now also didn't want to share with him. He survived on his own but sought to avenge his mom. He said he knew magic better than his father so he bet the father wouldn't recognize him if he changed shapes. Instead he hid and watched as the father accused the real king of being his son. His guards threw him into the river and he died. The son was happy and lived on in the forest.

The Slaying of the Tanuki
A man in the forest was tricked by the Tanuki a few to many times so he wanted to kill the Tanuki. He captured him and bound him in his house. But his kind wife freed him and the Tanuki instead cooked her up into a feast instead of him being the meal. He used his magic to take her shape and clothes and then when the man returned he ate the food which was his wife. The Tanuki changed back to itself and told the man what happened then ran away. The man wanted to avenge her so a hare helped him. He set him on fire but that wasn't enough so he took him out fishing a drowned him. Finally the wife was avenged and the man and hare lived happily together.

Uraschimataro and the Turtle
Ura was a daring fisherman and one day caught a turtle in his nets, he brought it aboard but it begged to be freed. Ura put it back and it said it owed him. Later on another voyage his ship was destroyed and he was almost killed but the same turtle came to his rescue. Instead of taking him straight home they went underwater for three days to find a palace. In the palace Ura met a woman who loved him from what the turtle told her. Ura stayed to live with her and she granted him to never die or age. Eventually he longed for his parents so she unwillingly let him go back only to return if he did not open the little chest she gave him. When he got back it had been 300 years and his parents had both passed away. He unconsciously opened the box and instantly became old, almost like a zombie. He waited for the turtle to come take him back but he never arrived and Ura die.