tion>William Elliot Griffis
Japanese Fairy World
Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4057664625434
Table of Contents
THE MEETING OF THE STAR-LOVERS.
THE BATTLE OF THE APE AND THE CRAB.
PEACH-PRINCE, AND THE TREASURE ISLAND.
THE SEVEN PATRONS OF HAPPINESS.
LITTLE SILVER'S DREAM OF THE SHOJI.
THE TENGUS, OR THE ELVES WITH LONG NOSES.
HOW THE JELLY-FISH LOST ITS SHELL.
LORD CUTTLE-FISH GIVES A CONCERT.
WATANABE CUTS OFF THE ONI'S ARM.
WATANABE KILLS THE GREAT SPIDER.
THE LAKE OF THE LUTE AND THE MATCHLESS MOUNTAIN.
THE WATERFALL OF YORO, OR THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.
THE PROCESSION OF LORD LONG-LEGS.
KIYOHIME, OR THE POWER OF LOVE.
THE FISHERMAN AND THE MOON-MAIDEN.
THE JEWELS OF THE EBBING AND THE FLOWING TIDE.
KAI RIU O, THE DRAGON KING OF THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA.
THE CREATION OF HEAVEN AND EARTH.
HOW THE SUN GODDESS WAS ENTICED OUT OF HER CAVE.
PREFACE.
The thirty-four stories included within this volume do not illustrate the bloody, revengeful or licentious elements, with which Japanese popular, and juvenile literature is saturated. These have been carefully avoided.
It is also rather with a view to the artistic, than to the literary, products of the imagination of Japan, that the selection has been made. From my first acquaintance, twelve years ago, with Japanese youth, I became an eager listener to their folk lore and fireside stories. When later, during a residence of nearly four years among the people, my eyes were opened to behold the wondrous fertility of invention, the wealth of literary, historic and classic allusion, of pun, myth and riddle, of heroic, wonder, and legendary lore in Japanese art, I at once set myself to find the source of the ideas expressed in bronze and porcelain, on lacquered cabinets, fans, and even crape paper napkins and tidies. Sometimes I discovered the originals of the artist's fancy in books, sometimes only in the mouths of the people and professional story-tellers. Some of these stories I first read on the tattooed limbs and bodies
