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A fascination anthology of Japanese Fairy Tales collected and translated in 1903 by the child of a Japanese father and an English mother, with illustrations by a Japanese artist Kazuko Fujiyama.
They have a typically fairy-tale narration, the simple 'this happened and then that happened' lending credence to the otherwise unbelievable happenings. As with Western fairy-tales a la Grimm, there are cruelties and horrors: per dogs are slaughtered, people killed without any sense that this might be any more than a personal tragedy. I was, however, a little surprised when, in 'The Happy Hunter and the Skilful Fisher' the hunter tries fishing and loses his brother's fish-hook and has to go down to the undersea palace of the Dragon King (who rules underwater) and the fish is found embedded in the throat of the red bream who is held responsible for stealing the hook and only escapes punishment because of how much he has already suffered with the hook inside him. There is no suggestion that the Dragon King might protect his subjects against the evil humans who are snatching them from the sea to be eaten!
There are some themes and motifs. Kintaro, the Golden boy, grows up alone in the wilds, a sort of cross between Tarzan and Dr Doolittle. Under the orders of her stepmother, a princess is taken out into the wilds by a servant to be abandoned (but he takes pity on her) just like Snow White and her male predecessors such as Oedipus. There is another princess who is to be the prize of a competition between suitors. Clearly folklore themes are universal expressions of the human condition.
But the context of emperors from the mythological age and samurai and dragons etc is all great fun. and lends the feeling that you are reading these tales for the first time.
Entertaining and interesting. With notes and a biographical sketch of the anthologist.
January 2026; 226 pages
First published as The Japanese Fairy book in 1903
My paperback edition was issued by Renard Press in 2025.
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