Folk Legends of Japan, page 17
Once upon a time there lived deep within these mountains a charcoal burner, Matajuro. He was so poor that no one would come to marry him. He lived a lonely life on the mountain, burning charcoal and taking it to the faraway harbor of Shimoda to sell, and so sustained himself from hand to mouth.
At this time, there was a famous choja in Kyoto who had a beautiful daughter named Ofuji. Her parents were worried because there had been no talk of marriage for her, although she had come of age. They could not tell the reason why she had no opportunity to marry. One day they consulted a fortuneteller, and he told them that it had been decided in her previous existence that a charcoal burner named Mala-juro who lived deep in the mountains of Kamogawa in Hata in Tosa should become her husband.
So Ofuji was persuaded by her parents to make a trip all by herself over sea and mountain from Kyoto to the recesses of Mt. Shiraishi. She arrived at a place called Deai [Encounter], a lonely spot where no one was likely to pass by. Then there came along a man, blackened with charcoal dust from tip to toe, carrying on his shoulder a straw bag filled with charcoal. Ofuji was so glad to see anybody that she asked him if he knew the charcoal burner Matajuro of Kamogawa. To her great surprise, he answered that he was that very Matajuro and that he was going down to the harbor of Shimoda to sell the bag of charcoal. Ofuji told him the reason behind her long trip from Kyoto and asked Matajuro to take her as his wife. Matajuro was quite embarrassed at her sudden request and refused it, since he had no place to lodge such a beautiful lady. However, Ofuji's determination was firm and she insisted. At last Matajuro yielded and led her to his cottage in the mountain. When they reached it, Ofuji found that the poverty in which he lived was almost beyond description.
As soon as they got to Matajuro's cottage, Ofuji took two gold coins out of the money she had brought from home and asked Matajuro to buy things with these coins at the town of Nakamura. Matajuro was seeing coins for the first time in his life, so he did not know how precious they were.
When he came to Kamoda at the lower village, Iwata, he saw a wild duck playing in the rice field. He wanted to catch it, and threw one of his coins at the bird in lieu of a stone. The coin did not hit the bird but making a curve in the air, dropped into the swamp. Matajuro took the other coin with him down to the town of Nakamura and tried to buy many things just for trial. The shopkeepers there sold him goods with unexpected pleasure.
Shortly after Matajuro returned home to the mountain, he told his wife how he had cast away one of the coins into the swamp. Ofuji was amazed at this story, and told him that such a gold piece was a precious treasure and that the people of the world would toil greatly to get just one such. Then Matajuro said mat there were plenty of such things behind the cottage where he made charcoal and that ashes produced by burning were just like these gold pieces. So Ofuji and Matajuro together went to the place where he had made charcoal, and found, as Matajuro had said, that all the heaps of ashes there were glittering with gold.
From shat day forward, the two burned almost daily the ko trees which grew in the mountain. They packed the gold thus produced in the charcoal bags under the disguise of charcoal and kept sending them to Ofuji's parents in Kyoto, who were greatly astonished. Before long, this couple went to Kyoto and became millionaires by the name of Konoike. Later, the village people in Naka Kamogawa built a shrine on the former site of the charcoal furnace.
This is commonly known among the local people as the Charcoal Treasury Shrine.
Also, they say that the place now called Deai in this village was named for the meeting there between Matajuro and Ofuji. The place-name "Wakafuji" [Young Ofuji] originated from the feeling of renewed youth in Matajuro when he made his decision to take Ofuji with him to his cottage in the mountain. And the reason for the ashes around the charcoal furnace changing into gold is explained on the ground that since he kept burning ko trees for three years, the smoke went up to heaven, from where gold poured down in heaps to the earth.
The villagers also say that if you keep burning ko trees for three years, you will become a millionaire.
ASAHI CHOJA
Two traditions of retribution on rich landowners who stop the sun so they can finish their rice planting in one day are in Mockjoya, IV, pp. 40-41, "Stopping the Sun," and in Yanagita-Mayer, Japanese Folk Tales, pp. 150-52, no. 52, "Koyama Lake." None has the ending of the first text below. The folk-Biblical legend of Joshua stopping the sun and the moon for thirty hours to enable the Israelites to defeat the Canaanites is in Joseph Gaer, The Lore of the Old Testament (Boston, 1951), pp. 191-93, "The Longest Day in the World."
The second text gives an entirely independent account of the decline of the same choja, involving Motif C55.2, "Tabu: shooting at consecrated water."
Texts from Bungo Densetsu Shu, pp. 115-16. Thefirstwas collected by Tomi Ninomiya and the second by Hiroko Yoshimura, both in Kuzu-gun, Iida-mura.
Note: Cho, 2.45 acre.
1. ALONG TIME AGO Asahi Choja lived at Sencho-muden. He had three pretty daughters whom he loved very much. This choja owned a thousand-cho rice field behind and a thousand-cho rice field in front.
One year, during the reign of Emperor Keiko, little rain fell when the season of rice planting came round. The rice fields dried up and the people were not able to plant rice. So the choja prayed for rain to the dragon god of the old pond at Takatsuhara in Asono-mura, making a promise that he would give one of his daughters to the god if the god would grant his request. Thereupon the rice fields became wet and the people commenced the work of rice planting.
While they were so engaged, a monkey trainer passed along the nearby road. The people stopped planting for a while to look at the monkey trainer's show. So they were not able to finish planting before sunset. Therefore the choja took his fan and beckoned the setting sun to come back again. And the sun indeed reascended, and the people were able to finish planting their rice that day. The choja was satisfied. "Well, that is very nice," he said.
Then, however, the choja remembered his promise to the dragon god. He asked his eldest daughter if she was willing to become the wife of the dragon god, but the eldest daughter refused. The choja asked the second daughter, but she also refused. Finally the third daughter answered that she would go to the dragon god if one condition was fulfilled. The condition was that she be placed inside seven wooden tubs. The villagers did as she desired and carried her in the sevenfold tubs to the old pond, from where she was to be taken away by the dragon god during the night. After they left her, she began to recite the sutras with all her heart.
When the day broke, the villagers returned to the pond. They found the girl alive in a tub. She was weeping but safe, perhaps because she had recited the sutras. The six outside tubs and all but one ring of the seventh tub were broken.
For this reason the ring at the bottom of a tub has ever since been called a nakiwa or weeping ring.
When harvest time came, all the rice plants of the choja's rice fields were changed into rushes.
2. This choja in his best days indulged in luxury. Disdainfully he shot an arrow at the mochi given as an offering to the god at New Year's time. The moment the arrow hit the mochi, it turned into a white bird and flew away. From that time on the choja's fortune steadily dwindled. His rice field, which extended over more than a thousand cho, came to produce little or no crop.
Today there remains a shrine dedicated to the white bird and a mound where the bird was buried on the place called Asahi Yashiki [Asahi Estate]. They say a plum tree there bears strange blossoms.
SANYA CHOJA
This legend embodies Motif N531.3, "Dream of treasure bought. Treasure has been seen by man's absent soul in sleep inform of a fly. The purchaser of the dream finds the treasure." Three variations on this theme, all chojatan, are in Yanagita-Mayer, Japanese Folk Tales, nos. 44-46, pp. 129-34, in which a bee, horseflies, and a dragonfly are seen hovering by the sleeper's mouth. Ikeda assigns Type 840 A, "A Bee Creeps Out of a Man's Nostril," to her analysis of eighteen Japanese versions (pp. 228-29).
Text from Bungo Densetsu Shu, pp. 12-13. Told by Yasue Sonoda.
LONG AGO there was a peddler called Sanya-no-suke at Hagiwara. He sold ginger and sieves in the district around Takeda. One day he went peddling with a friend, and on their way back they took a rest by the side of Mt. Toroku. The friend fell into a comfortable sleep. Sanya cast a casual glance at him, and just at that moment a mountain-bee came flying up and entered the nose of the sleeping man. After a while it came out and again entered the nose. It repeated this several times. Sanya shook his friend awake and asked him: "Didn't you feel something strange?"
"Well, a bee flew to me and told me to go to that mountain, because much gold is buried there; but I don't believe in such a dream," answered the friend.
So Sanya said: "Then, won't you sell me that dream?"
The friend consented. So Sanya gave him his ginger and sieves and bought the dream. He went to Mt. Toroku by himself and dug the ground at the place where he thought gold was buried, but he could not find it. Nevertheless, he continued digging very hard, forgetting any other work, so that at last he had to feed himself with only wheat which he managed to buy a little at a time.
At last his labor was rewarded. He found a gold vein. He soon prospered and became one of the richest men in the western part of Japan. He constructed a great mansion in the region now called Ebisumachi and Manya-cho (in Oita-shi). To such extremes did he carry his love of luxury that he built a room with a glass ceiling in which fish lived and swam about. He entertained himself looking up at the fish.
Hineno Oribe-no-kami, the lord of that district, was often invited by Sanya Choja to his home and spent pleasant times with the choja's son. One day when they were together resting easily, the choja's son lifted up his leg and pointed with his toe to the goldfish in the ceiling. This act offended the lord, and as a result Sanya and his family and kinsmen were condemned to death. Sanya appealed to the lord saying: "We shall present you with so many coffers containing a thousand gold pieces each that they will make stepping-stones from my house to your castle, if you will pardon us from so cruel a punishment."
But the lord did not accept his plea.
THE CAMELLIA TREE OF TAMAYA
Many references are given to Motif Q272, "Avarice punished," which is central the following legend.
Text from Densetsu no Echigo to Sado, I, pp. 23-26.
GEIHA IS one of the famous beauty spots in Echigo. Especially breathtaking is the view from Tonowa. Below the precipice is a fathomless pool called Zugai-ga-fuchi. According to tradition, there was land all around this place in olden times and the choja family called Tamaya lived there.
Tamaya was a merchant family hereditarily dealing in marine products. Tokubei, the head of the family, was an industrious man who worked hard from early in the morning till late at night and amassed much wealth. Many storehouses were built to hold his goods, and he acquired the reputation of being a choja. He married a wife as pretty as a flower, and she bore him a lovely child.
Although Tokubei lived in such comfort, yet he was sorely troubled about where to hide his gold and silver. One might say: "In the storehouse," but servants and maids would enter into the storehouse. There was no assurance against a thief's breaking in. Tokubei could not sleep soundly for worrying about the gold and silver which he had secured with such effort. After many sleepless nights he thought of a good plan. There was a bamboo thicket in the back of his house, and a camellia tree grew in that thicket. One dark night Tokubei dug in the ground under the camellia tree, by himself, and buried the box in which he had put his gold and silver. Nevertheless, his heart was not yet at peace. He constantly felt uneasy and in consequence was taken ill.
So Tokubei went with a servant to Matsuno-yama to take the baths. One day, after he had spent about a fortnight there, Tokubei, while in the bathroom, heard someone singing outside:
"The camellia tree of Tamaya at Geiha in Echigo,
The branches are silver and the leaves are gold."
This startled Tokubei. He wondered why in a place so far from his home there should be a person who knew the secret of his burying the gold and silver under the camellia tree. The servant said that the song was sung in admiration of Tamaya's prosperity. But those words did not dispel the fear from Tokubei's mind. He immediately got into a sedan chair and traveled back to Geiha. As soon as he reached his home, he rushed to see the camellia tree in the bamboo thicket. To his astonishment the tree was glittering, with its branches turned to silver and its leaves turned to gold. Tokubei fell into a swoon on the spot.
Through the care of neighbors he came to, but his health was never restored. When his end drew near he told his wife for the first time all about his secret. After his death his wife went out to the bamboo thicket. However, she found the camellia tree appearing as it always had, and she discovered nothing beneath the tree.
THE GOLD OX
The idea of one survivor's being left to tell the story is in De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. igs, in an entirely different legend, about a dragon whose curse killed every person in a clan except one blind minstrel.
Text from Too Ibun, pp. 20-22.
A CHOJA ONCE LIVED at Otomo-mura in the Tono district of the province of Rikuchu [now Kamihei-gun, Iwate-ken]. A servant in the choja's house was a queer fellow. All the year round, during his leisure time, he used to go into the mountains with a spade and dig up the ground here and there to get wild potatoes. People called him a fool. However, one year on New Year's Eve he finally struck a gold deposit in the valley called Hiishi in Otomo-mura. He took a piece of gold to his house and put it in the tokonoma. It shone outside through the broken door. So the servant became a rich man like his master and was respected by the people as Komatsu-dono or Komatsu choja.
Komatsu-dono directed his workers to dig further along the gold vein, and in the third year, again on the day before New Year's, they struck the main deposits, which lay in the shape of an ox. Komatsudono immediately held a great feast outside the pit and spent the night in entertainment. When the New Year's morning sun arose, he performed a ceremony to celebrate the discovery of the main gold deposits. Then he made all the workers pull a brocade rope tied to a horn of the gold ox. With shouts they pulled on the rope, and the horn of the ox broke off with a snap. So they tied the rope around the neck and pulled it, whereupon the ox seemed to move two or three steps ahead; but all at once the pit fell in, killing all seventy-five men.
On that occasion a man in charge of the cooking (whose job it also was to tell the time), who was called Usotoki (False Time) or Osotoki, (Late Time), was also in the pit, having been ordered to help the miners pull the rope. Hearing a call, he let go his hold on the rope and ran out of the pit, but found no one there. Thinking he mistook the voice, he went back into the pit. Then he heard the voice again, and a third time the voice sounded so sharp and urgent that he ran out instantly. The moment he stepped outside the pit it fell in. Therefore Usotoki was the only one who survived the calamity.
People say that this man was very honest, and never served the food before the exact prescribed time. So the workmen ridiculed him by giving him the name False Time.
THE POOR FARMER AND THE RICH FARMER
The popular Motif K1811.1, "Gods (spirits) disguised as beggars. Test hospitality," which appeared on pp. 33-36, recurs here, in conjunction with a common theme of Japanese fictional folk tales, the good old man and bad old man who are neighbors. This and the next two tales show the close line between fictional and legendary traditions. The same story can appear in both forms.
Text from Ina no Densetsu, pp. 235-37.
LONG AGO in Yamamoto-mura, a rich farmer and a poor farmer lived next door to each other. One evening a poor dirty-looking bonze came along and asked for a night's lodging at the rich man's house. The greedy old man, on seeing the shabby appearance of the bonze, refused his request with harsh words. The poor bonze was obliged to go next door and make the same request. The poor old man of that house readily gave him a night's lodging, letting him sleep on his only pallet.
The next morning the bonze cordially thanked the old man, saying: "I am really a Buddha who has come disguised as a poor man in order to look into people's hearts in this world. I am very much impressed by your kindheartedness. In appreciation for your goodness I will give you a tree planted in front of your house. You may make anything you wish from it."
As soon as the bonze finished these words he disappeared. Filled with wonder, the old man stood still for a while, without doing anything. Then he beheld a tree rise out from the ground in front of his house, just as the bonze had promised. It grew into a great tree before his eyes. The old man cut it down and made a mortar and a pestle from the wood. When he put rice into the mortar, one quart of rice became two quarts, and when he pounded it, the two quarts of rice became a gallon of mochi.
The greedy old man next door, observing this, borrowed the mortar and pestle. He pounded his rice, expecting to get many times more mochi than there was rice. But strange to say, one gallon of rice in the mortar decreased to two quarts and two quarts of rice to one quart. In his anger, the greedy old man broke the mortar into pieces and threw the pestle away into the brushwood.
When he came to retrieve his mortar, the goodhearted poor man was very sorry to learn of this outcome. Sorrowfully, he collected the pieces of the mortar and made a moneybox from them. In it he dropped the small change from his daily earnings, gained by selling firewood. In the box that money changed into gold pieces, and before long the old man became wealthy.
When the greedy old man heard about this, he forced his neighbor to lend him the moneybox. He took it to his home and put all his money inside it, expecting to take out a heap of gold pieces. To his surprise, however, his money in the box melted into water and, running out as a river, it formed a pool.
