Japanese Folktales Research Articles

Terayama Shūji’s Red Riding Hood

Terayama Shūji (1935–1983) is best known for his work with the experimental theater group Tenjō Sajiki. He was also a poet, photographer, essayist, filmmaker, and the author of a number critically neglected short stories that have been described as gensō dōwa—fantastic fairy tales. In addition to exploring Japanese folktales and legends, Terayama appropriated themes and motifs from the European fairy-tale canon. In 1979 he not only premièred his play Aohigekō no shiro (Duke Bluebeard’s Castle) but also published two collections of fairy tales. The first of these, Boku ga ōkami datta koro: sakasama dōwa shi (When I Was a Wolf: Topsy-Turvy Fairy Tales), is a collection of classic fairy tales and other canonical works that he “tests” by taking them apart and, as the subtitle suggests, turning them inside out and upside down before reconstructing them in his own inimitable style. “Akazukin”—translated here as “Red Riding Hood”—is taken from this collection and is the first of Terayama’s topsy-turvy fairy tales to be translated into English.

Terayama Shūji's <em>Red Riding Hood</em>

Born in the remote mountainous region of Aomori in northern Japan, Terayama frequently drew on the folk traditions, myths, and superstitions of the area, and, in addition to exploring premodern Japanese folktales and legends in plays such as Yamamba (The Mountain Witch, 1964), Aomori-ken no semushi otoko (The Hunchback of Aomori, 1967), Inugami (The Dog God, 1969), and Jashumon (Heresy, 1971), he also borrowed openly and extensively from the European fairy-tale canon and other disparate sources. Terayama admits that the seemingly always-out-ofreach fairy tales also lead to feelings of sour grapes (229), but rather than simply dismissing the tales, his anger and frustration ultimately turned his desire to read them into a desire to disgrace (229) them.4 Because of their darker elements, their use and abuse in the acculturation of children, and their potentially limiting effect on the imagination, Terayama insists that the role of fairy tales should be tested occasionally to determine whether they are actually interesting and instructive (230) or can be dismissed simply as mediocre stories (230) .

Fairytales and the Magic Lantern: Henry Underhill's Lantern Slides in The Folklore Society Collection

Among the collections of The Folklore Society, London, are a number of hand-painted magic lantern slides by Henry Underhill, an amateur scientist and naturalist who lived in Oxford during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The slides illustrate Japanese, Irish, Russian, Norwegian and French folktales drawn from various printed sources. They add a new dimension to our understanding of folktale reception at the period and to the interaction of folktale texts and their visual realisations.

Is the Animal Woman a Meek or an Ambitious Figure in Japanese Folktales? An Examination of the Appeal of Japanese Animal-Wife Tales

This study will examine what creates the appeal of Japanese animal-wife tales. To reach this end, this study undertakes two parallel tasks. One is to understand what characterizes these tales in terms of gender-specific behaviour of the two tale figures, an animal woman (i.e., an animal in human female form) and a human male. The other is to delve into the motivation of that gender-specific behaviour, and to understand how these tales revolve around the symbolic inversion of social codes concerning normative connubial manners.

The ideas of ego-formation in Japanese folk tales : how do Japanese folk tales influence growth in children?

The ideas of ego-formation in Japanese folk tales : how do Japanese folk tales influence growth in children?

A study on the Blacksmith Myths of East Asia - Focusing on Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnam Folktales -

A study on the Blacksmith Myths of East Asia - Focusing on Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnam Folktales -

Language, Culture, and Literacy

Language, Culture, and Literacy

Japanese Folktales of Fish

Japanese Folktales of Fish

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales. Selected and Translated by Fanny Hagin Mayer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. (Copublished with Asian Folklore Studies.) xxi, 360 pp. Notes to the Stories, Glossary, Cross Reference Table, Bibliography of Sources, Alphabetical List of Titles, General Index. $22.50.

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan makes available for the first time in English a unique collection of Japanese folk tales. More than half of these tales have never before been translated. Fanny Hagin Mayer, a pioneer Western scholar in the field of Japanese folklore, has selected 347 folk tales from the standard Japanese reference work, the Meii. Ninety early collectors from throughout Japan, among them key figures such as Sasaki Kizen and Iwakura Ichiro, furnished tales for this selection. This remarkable anthology presents a vivid picture of centuries of Japanese folk culture. Ancient Tales in Modern Japan is an essential work for students of folklore and Japanese culture.

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan makes available for the first time in English a unique collection of Japanese folk tales. More than half of these tales have never before been translated. Fanny Hagin Mayer, a pioneer Western scholar in the field of Japanese folklore, has selected 347 folk tales from the standard Japanese reference work, the Meii. Ninety early collectors from throughout Japan, among them key figures such as Sasaki Kizen and Iwakura Ichiro, furnished tales for this selection. This remarkable anthology presents a vivid picture of centuries of Japanese folk culture. Ancient Tales in Modern Japan is an essential work for students of folklore and Japanese culture.

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales.

Ancient Tales in Modern Japan: An Anthology of Japanese Folk Tales.

Fauna and Flora in Japanese Folktales

Fauna and Flora in Japanese Folktales

National Characteristics of Japanese Folktales

National Characteristics of Japanese Folktales

Thematic-Patterns in Japanese Folktales: A Search for Meanings

Thematic-Patterns in Japanese Folktales: A Search for Meanings

Recent Collections of Japanese Folk Tales

Selections from three of the four main lines of collecting Japanese folk literature in Japan are reviewed. Four volumes are by Mizusawa Ken'ichi, the foremost collector: Robata no tonto mukashi, Ojiya no mukashibanashi (1971); Mukashi attatte, Aramachi no mukashibanashi (1969); Miruna no hanazashiki, Haha to ko no mukashibanashi (1969); and Mukashibanashi nōto Saishū to kenkyū (1969). Mizusawa collects talcs in Niigata. The last mentioned book gathers together his reports, articles, and notes published between 1958 and 1969. He records in dialect with standard Japanese in parallel where necessary, preserving the musical flow of the tale. The next three volumes are in the Mukashibanashi kenkyū shiryō sōsho series published by a committee of university men: Daisen hokuroku no mukashibanashi (1970), Sado kininaka no mukashibanashi (1970), and Kogane no uma (1971). The first follows the format of the series, including recordings by narrators on 33⅓ rpm discs. Mukashibanashi wa ikite iru by Inada Koji, a member of the series committee, gives a hopeful view of the survival of folk tales. Hagino Saihei mukashibanshi shū (1970), a collection by Nomura Jun'ichi of Kokugakuin University and Nomura Keiko is a one-narrator volume showing the folk tale rooted in family legends

Available Japanese Folk Tales

Available Japanese Folk Tales

Reality in Japanese Folktales

In his book Miirchen und Wirklichkeit (Wiesbaden 1956) Lutz Rohrich examined the folktales with regard to their content of believed reality, in other words, he wanted to find an answer to the question: how much of the fairy tales was or still is the object of religious belief. Among other things he found that the aitiological or explanatory tales form the broadest basis which connects the tales of the Western and westernized world with the world of the primitive peoples. In them a lasting phenomenon of nature is taken as the result of a certain single event that happened long ago to explain the present condition. Concerning the degree of religious reality which they contain, Rohrich puts the tales of the civilized West in contrast to those of the primitives and only in passing, for lack of more spade work done among them and translations available, referring to the old and great South and East Asian civilizations. Only with regard to India is the author in a more favorable position. Deriving his information on the narratives of the Hindu from the book of Hertel Indische Marchen (Dusseldorf, 1954), Rohrich is of the opinion that for the Hindu there is no clearly defined boundary line between history and fairy tales.'

Japanese Folk Tales: A Revised Selection

Japanese Folk Tales: A Revised Selection

Japanese Folk Tales.

Japanese Folk Tales.