Urashima Taro and Other Stories

This episode we will take a break before diving into the life of Ōhatsuse Wakatake, looking, instead, at three stories from the Nihon Shoki from this time, including one of the oldest incarnations of the story of Urashima Tarō, often seen as Japan's own Rip van Winkle. https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-59 Rough Transcript: Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua and this is Episode 59: Urashima Taro and other stories. First, thanks to Lauren for supporting us over on Ko-Fi.com, and a belated thanks to Gaijin Historian for supporting us on Patreon. If you would like to join them, go check out SengokuDaimyo on either platform, or see the links on our own home page at SengokuDaimyo.com. With that out of the way, a quick apology: this episode is a little short. I had intended to jump into the life of our current sovereign, Ohohatsuse, aka Yuryaku Tenno, but there is still a lot of information I'm trying to get through, and I'd rather make sure that I have as much as I can before I start jumping into all of that, because it is a lot. But I don't want to leave you hanging, and there are a few fun stories that don't really impact the overall story, so I thought I would pull on those. To be honest, these stories would probably fit better in a Halloween episode. They are full of ghosts and werewolves and fantastical stories—and some of them you may even know. They hearken back to some of the stories we've already heard: from the isle of the immortals to stories about the great Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou, and I think they also help tell us a few things as well. For one thing, it is interesting that they exist at all. For the most part the Nihon Shoki was compiled as a dynastic history, telling the story of the royal family. Rarely do we get glimpses of others unless they are directly involved, somehow, in the royal lineage. Most of the time the stories of the fantastical are built around the stories of the sovereigns themselves—and certainly we have those stories in this period, too. Of course, stories of ghosts and magic can't exactly be taken at face value, and it does make us wonder about the rest of the narrative. We can't even be sure that these stories are set in the proper time. Were these stories that were being told in the 5th century? Or did they come about later, and just get added in here? Certainly some of the stories of continental exploits seem like they may actually be more appropriately attributed to an earlier sovereign, so while we can probably start to make some assumptions as to the accuracy of some dates, other events may have simply been placed in the time that seemed to best suit the lesson that was being communicated. Either way, we can't necessarily claim that these are actual fifth century stories—what we really know is that they existed by the eighth century and were well-known enough to have been written down in the compilation that became the Nihon Shoki. The three stories I want to focus on each deal with slightly different themes and events. To start with, perhaps it may be best to talk about the ghostly horse from the tomb of Homuda Wake, aka Oujin Tennou. As you may recall, his reign was credited with the arrival of the first horses from the Korean peninsula, along with their keeper, Ajikki. Next, we'll dive into something of a werewolf story. Well, kind of—it may not exactly be a Lon Chaney style story, but there is definitely the idea of fantastical shapeshifting, which is almost its own genre in traditional Japanese stories. Finally, we'll touch on what I suspect is the most famous of the stories—perhaps one of the most famous stories in Japan. That is the story of Urashima Taro, or, as he is known in these early stories, Urashima-ko, the Child of Urashima. This is Japan's own Rip van Winkle story, and it also shares a fair amount with some of the earlier stories of the Nihon Shoki, during the legends of the very first heavenly descendants. This early version also relies on the use of the famous Peng Lai, or Isle of Immortals, from stories of the famous Qin dynasty. All of that, and perhaps a little bit more, in this episode. Let's get into it, shall we? Our first story in today's triple feature comes, we are told, from the reports from the Kawachi area as recorded in the Nihon Shoki. If the Chronicles are to be believed, one of the earliest purposes for writing in the archipelago was to collect information from around the countryside and relay it back to the central government. Reports like this—the later fudoki—often give us intriguing insights into life outside the center, and can be quite illuminating. The report from Kawachi tells of a man in Asukabe named Hakuson of the Tanabe no Fubito. Hakuson—and that name is odd, as it doesn't look like a Japanese name, but I'll touch on that later. Anyway, Hakuson had a daughter, and she was married to a man named Karyu of ...