Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Hum.), Vol. 57(1), 2012, pp. 169-187 THE SPIRIT OF WATER IN OLD TALES OF JAPAN* Kayoko Takagi** Since early ages Japan has had a long tradition of oral literature and one of the relevant exponents of this tradition is the world of popular tales. Many collections of these famous stories have been published in different languages. As it is already accepted through valuable studies from the experts in literature as well as from the fields of anthropology and psycho-analysis, the popular tales show the profound psyche of the people at the same time as the idiosyncrasy of each culture. This paper presents two of the 32 stories I have collected and translated into Spanish in the book El espíritu del agua, cuentos tradicionales japoneses (The Spirit of Water, Old Tales of Japan), published by Alianza Editorial in 2009 in Spain. The reason I picked up them among others is that, first, they are the most representative stories of Japanese tradition and, second, I suspect that they show in many ways the cultural roots of other parts of Asia. Old tales as fantastic literature El espíritu deua, cuentos tradicionales japoneses (The Spirit of Water, Old Tales of Japan)1 was published in 2009 as part of the literary collection of Alianza Editorial in Spain. The assignment came to me several years ago for the purpose of selecting and translating the most relevant stories of Japanese popular tales into Spanish in order to meet the long time interest of Spanish readers in this field. The resources are very much varied. Many of them can be found in the collection of six volumes of Nihon no Mukashi banashi (Japanese Old Tales) rewritten by Toshio Ozawa for Fukuinkan Shoten. 2 Others are picked up from Otogizōshi3 (Collection of Fairly Tales, 14th-16th century) or from Konjaku monogatari (Anthology of Tales from the Past, after 1120). * Presented at the 13th Monthly Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on 5 March 2011. ** Professor, Madrid Autonomous University, Center for East Asian Studies, Spain 1 El espíritu del agua. Cuentos tradicionales japoneses, Kayoko Takagi, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2009. 2 Nihon no Mukashi banashi (Japanese Old Tales), Vol. I-VI, Toshio Ozawa, Fukuinkan Shoten, Tokyo, 2002. 3 Otogizōshi, Trans. by Hiroshi Kuwabara, Kodansha, Tokyo, 1994. 170 Kayoko Takagi One of the criteria for the selection was to collect the most famous stories framed within the archetypes of Japanese traditional tales. The motifs, the settings, the ways of narration are vast but there are certain groupings that we can trace as similar stories. Unlike some of other collections that include so called myths and legends mixed up with popular tales, I have separated them since they belong to a different range of literature although, as the Brothers Grimm suggested, we can find many elements from myth and legend scattered inside popular tales and fairly tales. Another consideration was also taken in order not to interfere the by a Greco-Irish writer, Lafcadio Hearn,4 whose collection of ghost stories called Kwaidan (Stories and Studies of Strange Things, 1903) is an important reference for the genre. In this sense, I have avoided deliberately the stories rewritten by him and aimed to offer the tales as they are transmitted naturally in different regions of Japan. Lafcadio Hearn lived in Japan during the Enlightenment period of the Meiji Era (after the opening of Japan to the outside world) from 1890 to 1904, and died there, naturalized Japanese as Koizumi Yakumo. His best known book Kwaidan became very famous already at that time among English readers, but sixty years later, in 1965 a motion picture was made based on it: Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi.5 The film received several important film festival prizes such as Cannes Film Festival or the nomination to the Academy Award as a foreign entry. The film reflected well the atmosphere of the ghost stories Hearn created and contributed to determine a special imagery of the Japanese traditional stories. The avant-garde audiovisual effects applied to the film, yet well in accordance with the taste of Japanese esthetics, surprise the viewers. Hearn rewrote these tales in English using his imagination, which inspired in many ways later generations outside and inside of Japan. This is the legacy borne after Hearn’s writings and we can affirm that Hearn’s recreation of Japanese old tales served to establish a fixed imagery of old Japan and, 4 Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) came to Japan in 1890 as journalist but established there as writer and professor of English literature. Married to a Japanese lady from a samurai family of Shimane prefecture and had 4 children. Glimpses of Unfamilier Japan, Kokoro: Hints and Echoes of Japanese Inner Life, Kwaidan are his major works. 5 Masaki Kobayashi (1916-1996) is one of the most representative film directors of contemporary Japan. He directed The Human Condition, Seppuku (1963 Cannes) Festival Jury Special Award), Kwaidan (1965 Cannes Festival Jury Special Award), Samurai Rebellion, among others. The Spirit of Water 171 simultaneously, this imagery affected back the Japanese understanding about their own popular tales. Although this is an interesting phenomenon that we may discuss further, I am not elaborating on this argument here. At this point, it seems to me important that the editor from Alianza Editorial must have had this image of Japanese traditional stories in his mind when he decided to go forward with the project. However, by this collection I wanted to demonstrate the variety and richness of Japanese traditional tales that go beyond Hearn’s ghost world. Now, although we admit the fact that the image of Japanese fantastic stories is coloured by Lafcadio Hearn and, consequently, many readers in foreign countries expect this type of stories from Japan, there are others not touched by him that also attract the attention as powerfully as the latter and even inspire more ancient fantasies of the Japanese culture. Two stories I have chosen precisely belong to this type of stories. `` Image 1: Cover of the book, El espíritu del agua. Cuentos tradicionales japoneses 172 Kayoko Takagi Urashima Tarō The first tale is called Urashima Tarō6 and is considered the oldest story of Japan. We can trace it back because it appears in one of the oldest books of Japan: Nihon Shoki o Nihongi (The Chronicles of Japan compiled in 720 A.D. under an Imperial order). Many other versions follow this and gradually it was converted into an orally transmittable popular tale. Let’s start with a quick view over the story and see how it develops. We will use the most popularly known version 7 for the purpose of the dissertation. Fortunately, the book was published first in the 1930’s by Kodansha International with very nice illustrations, but most outstandingly, the series were edited in bilingual version: Japanese and English. Japan is an archipelago composed of more than six thousand islands around. Hence, the water plays an important role in the Japanese life, (so much as in Bangladesh). Urashima Tarō is a simple young fisherman living on the coast of the Sea of Japan. He is the only child of an aged couple. One day, Tarō was out fishing and wishing and dreaming…of the inside world of the sea. When, to his surprise, as he sat there afloat, a giant sea turtle swam up to his boat. “Hello there, Urashima Tarō. Come down to the Dragon King’s Palace with me!” - the turtle said to Tarō. He didn’t think twice – well why should he? He sat on the back of the sea turtle guide and went deep down under the sea. The text in rhyme says: Deep down dove the turtle, Then down deeper still, To curtains of seaweed 6 Urashima is a toponym, so it could be a family name for the people from the place. Tarō, on the other hand, is equivalent to a common male name such as John or Jim in English. 7 Urashima and the Kingdom Beneath the Sea, Bilingual book in Japanese and English, Tras: Rulf McCarthy, Ilus: Shiro Kasamatsu, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1996. The Spirit of Water 173 That covered a hill, Then on through the curtains, To what lay below- A forest of coral That waved to and fro. Then on through the forest, and low and behold: The Dragon King’s palace, all emerald and gold! And there at the gate, seven beautiful maids Awaited Tarō with their hair up in braids. And late in the evening, fair Princess Oto Arose to dance all by herself for Tarō And sang him a song as she tiptoed and twirled: “You’re welcome to stay here in our little world, Down here there’s no sorrow, no anger, no fear, No reason to leave – all you’ve dreamed of is here.” You can’t really blame him for wanting to stay He lingered for many a long, lazy day, And soon he lost all sense of time, It appears – The days became weeks, And then months, And then years. But one night our hero sat dozing, and dreamed Of Mother and Father. How lonely they seemed! They scanned the horizon for signs of Tarō, Who’d left to go fishing some three years ago. 174 Kayoko Takagi The next day Tarō told the princess, his love, He had to go back to the land up above, “It grieves me to think of my parents alone, I’ll miss you, but I have a home of my own.” “So be it”, she said with a tear in her eyes, And gave him a gift to remember her by – A box decorated with ivory and gold, “Don’t lose it,” she said, “and you’ll never grow old.