1 traditional Japanese folk stories:The Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter

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• published: 27 Feb 2014
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Long, long ago there was an old bamboo-cutter. One day he stumbled upon a bamboo stalk glowing with a mysterious light and a tiny girl nestled inside. He carried her home and with his wife raised the child as their own. Within months, she had grown into a beautiful young woman and had five noblemen asking for her hand in marriage. She set them each an almost impossible task, and told them she would marry whoever carries out her request successfully... In its complete narrative form, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is thought to be the oldest extant folk story in Japan. Although most of the tale is believed to have been written in the 9th or 10th century, some elements probably derive from much older folktales. The story is filled with numerous motifs that are common in folktales around the world. This Tale belongs to the "tiny infant" genre, in which the story begins with the birth of a remarkably small child. Similar characters from other example include Momotaro, who is born from a peach, and Urikohime, who emerges from a melon. Other archetypal motifs include a marriage between a human being and a heavenly princess, and a series of tasks presented to the suitors. This story also has science fiction-like elements that are unusual in a Japanese folktale, including a character who descends to Earth from the moon and returns when a delegation arrives to fetch her. Folktales featuring bamboo children are found across China and Southeast Asia, and it has been suggested that The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter belongs to this tradition. Discussion by Juliet Winters Carpenter and Yuko Aotani Aotani:So how was it, translating the Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter?Juliet:Well, it was very satisfying, thank you, and a lot of fun. Even though this is of course an abbreviated version of the story, I wouldn't want people to think this is the whole story. But it gives all of the essential elements of what makes the Tale of the Bamboo-Cutter so much fun. Aotani:Originally it was written in ancient Japanese, so people these days probably won't understand the original.Juliet:What's interesting about it is that we have a text for it. Taketorimonogatari was written over a thousand years ago, and most folktales don't have a written version that we keep coming back to saying this is the real story. They are passed on orally from generation to generation, as bed time stories or whatever. But here we do have this classical version that has been retold in translations. People keep telling it because they love the story and they want to keep making it new, but you can always go back to this ancient, long, and as you say very literary and sophisticated text, which is almost unheard of.Aotani:And the Heroine of the story, Princess Kaguya, is quite a character! Juliet:Yes, absolutely. She is almost very modern, she has a mind of her own. She's smart, like most or probably all heroines of fairy tales, of course is extremely beautiful. But usually beauty is equated with virtue, like Cinderella, and she's not particularly virtuous.Aotani:She's very stubborn as well, isn't she? Strong and stubborn.Juliet:Yes, and she's mean to her suitors.Aotani:Very much so!Juliet:She makes them go through so much!Aotani:Yes, adventures, that makes the story fun and comical at the same time.Juliet:It's fun that they play along with it. They say, "Okay, sure, we'll go to India or whatever," and they turn around and...Aotani:... and do something completely different!Juliet:Yes, so it's very interesting, the interplay of personalities. And she's virtuous in a sense that she is trying to make her father happy, but her goal is not to get married! I think that makes her very unusual, what story do we have where a girl doesn't want to get married? She doesn't fall in love!Aotani:As the story evolves, we can depict complex human feelings within her, that she's very strong, she's a modern kind of a woman, but at the end, she's sad about leaving the Earth and her family. It's much more than a simple fairy tale where we often see good and bad fight each other.