Ancient Tales and Folk-Lore of Japan by Richard Gordon Smith (ebook reader android TXT) 📖

be able to reach the sembei; and indeed the carp did thus break the ice, until at last he reached the prize, bleeding and hurt, but still rewarded for brave perseverance.

Rosetsu, much impressed, watched the fish swim off with the food, and reflected.

‘Yes,’ he said to himself: ‘this has been a moral lesson to me. I will be like this carp. I will not go home until I have gained my object. As long as there is breath in my body I will work to carry out my intention. I will labour harder than ever, and, no matter if I do not progress, I will continue in my efforts until I attain my end or die.’

After this resolve Rosetsu visited the neighbouring temple, and prayed for success; also he thanked the local deity that he had been enabled to see, through the carp’s perseverance, the line that a man should take in life.

Rosetsu then returned to Kyoto, and to his master, Okyo, told the story of the carp and of his determination.

Okyo was much pleased, and did his best for his backward pupil. This time Rosetsu progressed. He became a well-known painter, the best man Okyo ever taught, as good, in fact, as his master; and he ended by being one of Japan’s greatest painters.

Rosetsu took for crest the leaping carp.

Footnotes

44:1 One day my old painter Busetsu was talking with me about Japan’s greatest painters, and of one of them he told a strange story. It was interesting in one thing especially, and that was that the name of Rosetsu I could not find mentioned in Louis Gonse’s book, though, of course, Maruyama Okyo was. Five names were given as those of the best pupils of Okyo; but Rosetsu was not mentioned. I wrote to my friend the Local Governor, who is an authority on Japanese paintings. His answer was, ‘You are quite right: Rosetsu was one of Okyo’s best pupils, perhaps the best.’

VII LEGENDS TOLD BY A FISHERMAN ON LAKE BIWA, AT ZEZE

WHILE up fishing on Lake Biwa, and later shooting in the vicinity (shooting is not allowed on the lake itself, the water being considered a holy place), I often made Zeze my head-quarters. At the edge of the lake, just there, stands the cottage of an old old fisherman and his sons. They have made a little harbour for their boats; but they cultivate no ground, their cottage standing in wild grass near a solitary willow. The reason of this is that they are rich, or comparatively so, being the owners of an immense fish-trap, which runs out into the lake nearly a mile, and is a disgrace to all civilised ideas of conservation. They bought the rights from the Daimio, who owned Zeze Castle a hundred years or more ago (this is my own guess at the date, for I never asked or noted it). The trap catches enough to keep the whole of four families comfortable.

Two or three interesting little legends (truths the old senior fisherman called them) I got, either from himself or from his son while visiting his trap, or sitting under his willow, fishing myself—for stories.

‘Surely the Danna San could not be interested in the simple old stories of bygone days? Even my sons do not care for them nowadays!’

‘I care for anything of interest,’ I said. ‘And you will greatly please me by telling me any fishermen’s legends of hereabouts, or even of the northwestern end of the lake if you know any.’

‘Well, there is our Fire Ball,’ said the old fisherman. That is a curious and unpleasant thing. I have seen it many times myself. I will begin with that.’

8. The FireBall or ‘Shito Dama’ of Akechi LEGEND

‘Many years ago there was a Daimio who had constructed at the foot of the southern spur of Mount Hiyei a castle, the ruins of which may still be seen just to the north of the military barracks of the Ninth Regiment in Otsu. The name of the Daimio was Akechi Mitsuhide, and it is his shito dama that we see now in wet weather on the lake. It is called the spirit of Akechi.

‘The reason of it is this. When Akechi Mitsuhide defended himself against the Toyotomi, he was closely invested; but his castle held out bravely, and could not be taken in spite of Toyotomi’s greater forces. As time went on, the besiegers became exasperated, and prevailed upon a bad fisherman from Magisa village to tell where was the source of water which supplied Akechi’s castle. The water having been cut off, the garrison had to capitulate, but not before Akechi and most of his men had committed suicide.

‘From that time, in rain or in rough weather, there has come from the castle a fireball, six inches in diameter or more. It comes to wreak vengeance on fishermen, and causes many wrecks, leading boats out of their course. Sometimes it comes almost into the boat. Once a fisherman struck it with a bamboo pole, breaking it up into many fiery bits; and on that occasion many boats were lost.

‘In full it is called “The Spider Fire of the Spirit of the Dead Akechi.” That is all, sir, that I can tell of it—except that often have I seen it myself, and feared it.’

‘That is very interesting,’ said I, ‘and quite what I like. Can you tell me any more?’

‘Perhaps, if Danna San found interest in that simple story, he would like to know the reason of why we always have such a terrible storm over the lake on February 25: so I will tell of that also.’

9. O Tani San’s Tub Gets Swamped LEGEND

‘Long ago there lived in the village of Komatsu, on the south-eastern side of the lake, a beautiful girl called O Tani. She was the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and of a studious nature as far as it was possible for a girl to be so in those days; that is to say, she was for ever wishing to learn and to know things which were not always within the province of women to know. With the intention of inquiring and learning, she frequently crossed the lake in a boat alone, to visit a certain talented and clever young monk, who was the chief priest at one of the smaller temples situated at the foot of Mount Hiyei San, just over there where you are looking now.

‘So deeply impressed was O Tani San with the priest’s knowledge, she lost her heart and fell in love with him. Her visits became more frequent. Often she crossed the lake alone, in spite of her parents’ protests, when the waves were too high for the safety even of a hardy fisherman like myself.

‘At last O Tani could resist no longer. She felt that she must tell the good priest of her love for him, and see if she could not persuade him to renounce the Church and run away with her.

‘The monk was greatly sorrowed, and did not quite know what to say, or how to put the girl off. At last he thought that he would give her an impossible task. Knowing that the weather on Lake Biwa towards the end of February is nearly impossible as far as the navigation of small boats is concerned, he said, probably not for a moment meaning it seriously:

‘“O Tani San, if you successfully crossed the lake on the evening of February 25 in a washing-tub, it might be possible that I should cast off my robes and forget my calling to carry out your wishes.”

‘O Tani did not think of the impossible, nor did she quite understand the depth of the priest’s meaning; young and foolish as she was with her blind love, she sculled herself home, thinking that the next time she crossed the lake it would be in the washing-tub and to carry off the young priest as her husband. She was supremely happy.

‘At last the 25th of February arrived. O Tani had taken care that the best and largest washing-tub had been left near the borders of the lake. After dark she embarked in her frail craft, and without the least fear started.

‘When she was about half-way across a fearful storm broke over Hiyei Mountain. The waves arose, and the wind blew with blinding force. Moreover, the light that was usually burning on the Hiyei San side of the lake, which the priest had promised should be especially bright this night, had been blown out. It was not long before poor O Tani’s tub was capsized, and in spite of her efforts to keep afloat she sank beneath the waves to rise no more.

‘It is said by some that the priest himself put out the light, so as to cut off the last possible chance of O Tani’s reaching the shore, being over-zealous in his thoughts of good and evil.

‘Since the night that O Tani was drowned, every 25th of February has been wild and stormy, and fishermen fear to be out on that day. People say that the cause is the dissatisfied spirit of poor O Tani, who, though she did not fear death, died disconsolate at being deceived by the monk she loved.

‘The washing-tub that O Tani used drifted ashore at Kinohama village, in Eastern Omi. It was picked up by Gensuke, a match-maker, who split it up and made matches of it. When this became known to the villagers of Kinohama, including Gensuke himself, they resolved that every 25th of February should be a holiday, and that a prayer should be said at their shrine for the spirit of

[paragraph continues] O Tani. They call the day “Joya” (Dealer in Matches Festival), and on it no men work.’

‘That is a capital story,’ said I to the old fisherman; ‘but I should greatly have liked to put the monk in another tub on the following 25th of February, and anchored him out, so that he should be sure of being drowned in the same way.’

‘Does the Danna San know why all the little papers are tied in the black rocks at Ishiyama-dera?’

‘No: I do not,’ I answered; ‘and, moreover, when I went there no one would or could tell me.’

‘Well, it is not an uninteresting story, and I will tell it to you, for it is short.’

10. The Black Rocks at Ishiyama-dera Where Prayers Are Tied

LEGEND

‘As the Danna San has been to Ishiyama-dera, he will know about the temple and monastery, which has a history eleven hundred years long; 1 but few people know the real reason why the bits of paper with prayers on them are tied to the black rocks.

‘The origin or the reason of tying these paper prayers—musubi no kami, as they are called—is pretty, if suicide for the romance of love can make it so.

‘Many years ago in Baba Street of Otsu, then known as Shibaya Street, there was a teahouse called Kagiya, which kept very beautiful geisha. Among them was one, named O Taga hana, whose loveliness surpassed all imagination. Though scarcely seventeen, her heart was no longer her own. It had gone as completely to her lover Denbei as had his to her. It is difficult to imagine how this desperate affair came about at first, for Denbei was only the clerk of a rice-merchant in Otsu, and had but little money to spend on geisha, especially in such an expensive teahouse as Kagiya.

‘Jealousy and unhappiness crept . into the heart of Denbei, not on account of any unfaithfulness on the part of O Taga hana San, but because he felt jealous of others being well enough off