Folk Legends of Japan

Folk Legends of Japan PDF Author: Richard M. Dorson
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462909639
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Delightfully illustrated, this collection of Japanese myths and fairy tales presents readers with a rich folk tradition. Folk Legends of Japan contains of over one hundred Japanese folk legends. These have been selected by a distinguished American folklorist, drawn from expert Japanese transcriptions of oral legends, and carefully translated in such a way as to bring out the charming, unadorned, and sometimes disarmingly frank folk quality of the originals. Each legend is carefully annotated for the student, scholar, and a full bibliography is provided. Fortunately, the scholarly attributes of the book are now allowed to intrude between the general reader and his enjoyment of the legends themselves. Anyone who loves a genuine old wives' tales, who savors firelit evenings of listening to the folk stories will find much pleasure in these Japanese stories. At the same time the folklorist will find a mine of information, and the Japanophile will discover the folk basis for many of the beliefs and customs that may have puzzled him in the past.

Folk Legends of Japan

Folk Legends of Japan PDF Author: Richard M. Dorson
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462909639
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Delightfully illustrated, this collection of Japanese myths and fairy tales presents readers with a rich folk tradition. Folk Legends of Japan contains of over one hundred Japanese folk legends. These have been selected by a distinguished American folklorist, drawn from expert Japanese transcriptions of oral legends, and carefully translated in such a way as to bring out the charming, unadorned, and sometimes disarmingly frank folk quality of the originals. Each legend is carefully annotated for the student, scholar, and a full bibliography is provided. Fortunately, the scholarly attributes of the book are now allowed to intrude between the general reader and his enjoyment of the legends themselves. Anyone who loves a genuine old wives' tales, who savors firelit evenings of listening to the folk stories will find much pleasure in these Japanese stories. At the same time the folklorist will find a mine of information, and the Japanophile will discover the folk basis for many of the beliefs and customs that may have puzzled him in the past.

Japanese Tales

Japanese Tales PDF Author: Royall Tyler
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 0307784061
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Two hundred and twenty tales from medieval Japan—tales that welcome us into a fabulous faraway world populated by saints, scoundrels, ghosts, magical healers, and a vast assortment of deities and demons. Stories of miracles, visions of hell, jokes, fables, and legends, these tales reflect the Japanese civilization. They ably balance the lyrical and the dramatic, the ribald and the profound, offering a window into a long-vanished culture. With black-and-white illustrations throughout Part of the Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library

The Book of Yokai

The Book of Yokai PDF Author: Michael Dylan Foster
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520271017
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity. Ê

Myths and Legends of Japan

Myths and Legends of Japan PDF Author: Frederick Hadland Davis
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 146560796X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
Pierre Loti in Madame Chrysanthème, Gilbert and Sullivan in The Mikado, and Sir Edwin Arnold in Seas and Lands, gave us the impression that Japan was a real fairyland in the Far East. We were delighted with the prettiness and quaintness of that country, and still more with the prettiness and quaintness of the Japanese people. We laughed at their topsy-turvy ways, regarded the Japanese woman, in her rich-coloured kimono, as altogether charming and fascinating, and had a vague notion that the principal features of Nippon were the tea-houses, cherry-blossom, and geisha. Twenty years ago we did not take Japan very seriously. We still listen to the melodious music of The Mikado, but now we no longer regard Japan as a sort of glorified willow-pattern plate. The Land of the Rising Sun has become the Land of the Risen Sun, for we have learnt that her quaintness and prettiness, her fairy-like manners and customs, were but the outer signs of a great and progressive nation. To-day we recognise Japan as a power in the East, and her victory over the Russian has made her army and navy famous throughout the world. The Japanese have always been an imitative nation, quick to absorb and utilise the religion, art, and social life of China, and, having set their own national seal upon what they have borrowed from the Celestial Kingdom, to look elsewhere for material that should strengthen and advance their position. This imitative quality is one of Japan's most marked characteristics. She has ever been loath to impart information to others, but ready at all times to gain access to any form of knowledge likely to make for her advancement. In the fourteenth century Kenkō wrote in his Tsure-dzure-gusa: "Nothing opens one's eyes so much as travel, no matter where," and the twentieth-century Japanese has put this excellent advice into practice. He has travelled far and wide, and has made good use of his varied observations. Japan's power of imitation amounts to genius. East and West have contributed to her greatness, and it is a matter of surprise to many of us that a country so long isolated and for so many years bound by feudalism should, within a comparatively short space of time, master our Western system of warfare, as well as many of our ethical and social ideas, and become a great world-power. But Japan's success has not been due entirely to clever imitation, neither has her place among the foremost nations been accomplished with such meteor-like rapidity as some would have us suppose. We hear a good deal about the New Japan to-day, and are too prone to forget the significance of the Old upon which the present régime has been founded. Japan learnt from England, Germany and America all the tactics of modern warfare. She established an efficient army and navy on Western lines; but it must be remembered that Japan's great heroes of to-day, Togo and Oyama, still have in their veins something of the old samurai spirit, still reflect through their modernity something of the meaning of Bushido. The Japanese character is still Japanese and not Western. Her greatness is to be found in her patriotism, in her loyalty and whole-hearted love of her country. Shintōism has taught her to revere the mighty dead; Buddhism, besides adding to her religious ideals, has contributed to her literature and art, and Christianity has had its effect in introducing all manner of beneficent social reforms. There are many conflicting theories in regard to the racial origin of the Japanese people, and we have no definite knowledge on the subject. The first inhabitants of Japan were probably the Ainu, an Aryan people who possibly came from North-Eastern Asia at a time when the distance separating the Islands from the mainland was not so great as it is to-day. The Ainu were followed by two distinct Mongol invasions, and these invaders had no difficulty in subduing their predecessors; but in course of time the Mongols were driven northward by Malays from the Philippines. "By the year A.D. 500 the Ainu, the Mongol, and the Malay elements in the population had become one nation by much the same process as took place in England after the Norman Conquest. To the national characteristics it may be inferred that the Ainu contributed the power of resistance, the Mongol the intellectual qualities, and the Malay that handiness and adaptability which are the heritage of sailor-men." Such authorities as Baelz and Rein are of the opinion that the Japanese are Mongols, and although they have intermarried with the Ainu, "the two nations," writes Professor B. H. Chamberlain, "are as distinct as the whites and reds in North America." In spite of the fact that the Ainu is looked down upon in Japan, and regarded as a hairy aboriginal of interest to the anthropologist and the showman, a poor despised creature, who worships the bear as the emblem of strength and fierceness, he has, nevertheless, left his mark upon Japan. Fuji was possibly a corruption of Huchi, or Fuchi, the Ainu Goddess of Fire, and there is no doubt that these aborigines originated a vast number of geographical names, particularly in the north of the main island, that are recognisable to this day. We can also trace Ainu influence in regard to certain Japanese superstitions, such as the belief in the Kappa, or river monster.

Folk Legends from Tono

Folk Legends from Tono PDF Author:
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442248238
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Boldly illustrated and superbly translated, Folk Legends from Tono captures the spirit of Japanese peasant culture undergoing rapid transformation into the modern era. This is the first time these 299 tales have been published in English. Morse’s insightful interpretation of the tales, his rich cultural annotations, and the evocative original illustrations make this book unforgettable. In 2008, a companion volume of 118 tales was published by Rowman & Littlefield as the The Legends of Tono. Taken together, these two books have the same content (417 tales) as the Japanese language book Tono monogatari. Reminiscent of Japanese woodblocks, the ink illustrations commissioned for the Folk Legends from Tono, mirror the imagery that Japanese villagers envisioned as they listened to a storyteller recite the tales.The stories capture the extraordinary experiences of real people in a singular folk community. The tales read like fiction but touch the core of human emotion and social psychology. Thus, the reader is taken on a magical tour through the psychic landscape of the Japanese “spirit world” that was a part of its oral folk tradition for hundreds of years. All of this is made possible by the translator’s insightful interpretation of the tales, his sensitive cultural annotations, and the visual charm of the book’s illustrations. The cast of characters is rich and varied, as we encounter yokai monsters, shape-shifting foxes, witches, grave robbers, ghosts, heavenly princesses, roaming priests, shamans, quasi-human mountain spirits, murderers, and much more.

Japanese Legends and Folklore

Japanese Legends and Folklore PDF Author: A.B. Mitford
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462920713
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Japanese Legends and Folklore invites English speakers into the intriguing world of Japanese folktales, ghost stories and historical eyewitness accounts. With a fascinating selection of stories about Japanese culture and history, A.B. Mitford--who lived and worked in Japan as a British diplomat--presents a broad cross section of tales from many Japanese sources. Discover more about practically every aspect of Japanese life--from myths and legends to society and religion. This book features 30 fascinating Japanese stories, including: The Forty-Seven Ronin--the famous, epic tale of a loyal band of Samurai warriors who pay the ultimate price for avenging the honor of their fallen master. The Tongue-Cut Sparrow--a good-hearted old man is richly rewarded when he begs forgiveness from a sparrow who is injured by his spiteful, greedy wife. The Adventures of Little Peach Boy--a tale familiar to generations of Japanese children, a small boy born from a peach is adopted by a kindly childless couple. Japanese Sermons--a selection of sermons written by a priest belonging to the Shingaku sect, which combines Buddhist, Shinto and Confucian teachings. An Account of Hara-Kiri--Mitford's dramatic first person account of a ritual Samurai suicide, the first time it had been reported in English. Thirty-one reproductions of woodblock prints bring the classic tales and essays to life. These influential stories helped shape the West's understanding of Japanese culture. A new foreword by Professor Michael Dylan Foster sheds light on the book's importance as a groundbreaking work of Japanese folklore, literature and history.

Japanese Fairy Tales

Japanese Fairy Tales PDF Author: Yei Theodora Ozaki
Publisher: BEYOND BOOKS HUB
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
This collection of Japanese fairy tales is the outcome of a suggestion made to me indirectly through a friend by Mr. Andrew Lang. They have been translated from the modern version written by Sadanami Sanjin. These stories are not literal translations, and though the Japanese story and all quaint Japanese expressions have been faithfully preserved, they have been told more with the view to interest young readers of the West than the technical student of folk-lore. Grateful acknowledgment is due to Mr. Y. Yasuoka, Miss Fusa Okamoto, my brother Nobumori Ozaki, Dr. Yoshihiro Takaki, and Miss Kameko Yamao, who have helped me with translations. The story which I have named “The Story of the Man who did not Wish to Die” is taken from a little book written a hundred years ago by one Shinsui Tamenaga. It is named Chosei Furo, or “Longevity.” “The Bamboo-cutter and the Moon-child” is taken from the classic “Taketari Monogatari,” and is NOT classed by the Japanese among their fairy tales, though it really belongs to this class of literature. The pictures were drawn by Mr. Kakuzo Fujiyama, a Tokio artist. In telling these stories in English I have followed my fancy in adding such touches of local color or description as they seemed to need or as pleased me, and in one or two instances I have gathered in an incident from another version. At all times, among my friends, both young and old, English or American, I have always found eager listeners to the beautiful legends and fairy tales of Japan, and in telling them I have also found that they were still unknown to the vast majority, and this has encouraged me to write them for the children of the West...FROM THE BOOKS.

Japanese Myths, Legends & Folktales

Japanese Myths, Legends & Folktales PDF Author: Yuri Yasuda
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462920640
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
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Legend in Japanese Art

Legend in Japanese Art PDF Author: Henri L. Joly
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 732

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Book Description


The Legends of Tono

The Legends of Tono PDF Author: Kunio Yanagita
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739130242
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
In 1910, when Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962) wrote and published The Legends of Tono in Japanese, he had no idea that 100 years later, his book would become a Japanese literary and folklore classic. Yanagita is best remembered as the founder of Japanese folklore studies, and Ronald Morse transcends time to bring the reader a marvelous guide to Tono, Yanagita, and his enthralling tales. In this 100th Anniversary edition, Morse has completely revised his original translation, now out of print for over three decades. Retaining the original's great understanding of Japanese language, history, and lore, this new edition will make the classic collection available to new generations of readers.