Myths and Legends of Japan by F Hadland Davis(part 3)
Here's one for the WTF? factor: in one of the fox stories, A Fox's Gratitude, a man saves the life of a baby fox. Later, his son falls ill, and he's told that only the liver of a fox could cure him. The next night, a stranger brings him the liver of a fox and his son gets better, and that night, a beautiful woman appears at the son's bedside, and tells him that she's the mother of the fox the man saved, and to express her gratitude, she killed her own son to save his, and the liver that the boy ate was the liver of the fox the man saved. Now, seriously "Hey, thanks for saving my kid. I heard your son was sick, so I killed my own to say thanks. We even now?" Yeahyeahyeah..."the life you save saves that of the one you love." etc., but come on...
Also, when fox spirits possess people, they apparently either enter through the breast or the fingertips. I must ponder reasons for this beyond breast obsession and smoking fingers. The book didn't even mention fox wife tales, which I found to be a bit odd, as they're pretty much the best known ones now. Maybe they weren't as big then? *very briefly pimps Neil Gaiman's The Dream Hunters and Kij Johnson's Fox Woman as good takes on this kind of story*
You know what kind of story I never quite get(but somehow love)? The stories about the amazingly beautiful woman(in this case, Kaguya) who has every man in the world falling in love with her because she's beautiful, and instead of getting to know them, she sends them off on quests to bring her shiny things. I think one of her suitors pegged the heroines of this type of story right: "A thief of men's souls and a destroyer of their bodies is the Lady Kaguya, nor will I ever seek her abode again, nor ever bend ye your steps thitherward." That's right Otomo no Miyuki...now go find yourself a nice girl to marry, not some chick eho'll marry whoever risks his life to bring her the prettiest shiny. Personally, I think they should have all been clued in by the fact that she was a moon maiden exiled to earth for salaciousness, who popped out of a bamboo shaft and then grew from a few inches to full grown over night.
Then there's Yuki-Onna, the japanese Lady of the Snow, who's usually given rather vampire-like attributes. She sees a man named Mosaku and his apperntice Minokichi while they're travelling. She kills Mosaku in his sleep, but, following the general plot of most vampire romances everywhere, she's struck by Minokichi's beauty and spares him, but makes him swear to never ever ever mention her to anyone. Soon after that, he meets a beautiful girl named Yuki and marries her, and 10(!!!) kids later, he comments that she looks just like the snow lady. BIG MISTAKE! "Oh, faithless wretch, you have broken your promise to keep the matter secret, and if it were not for out sleeping children I would kill you now! Remember, if they have aught to complain of at your hands I shall hear, and on a night when the snow falls I will kill you!" And then she turns into shrieking and thundering mist and he never hears from her again. This is why you don't break your promise to a woman...esp. if she's gone through 10 pregnancies.
And I have decided that Japanese ghosts are creepy. Not the ones with really long and weird faces and necks, but the little three-year-olds who eat bodyparts.
Sadly, there has been no more finding or handing out of Special Swords, but there have been plenty of doomed doomed doomed love stories. And around page 180, Davis started using "samurai." I am now even more bitter over "doughty knight." I shall never let that go. NEVER.
*reads more*