Japanese Folktale Essay

Different types of folktale

History of written Japanese literature could be traced in Nara period. In the early 8th century Kojiki (The Record of Ancient Matters, 712) was written, which included narratives from the storyteller and was totally based on the memory of recite Hieda no Are. The second anthology was Nihonshoki written in 720 by the historians of the Yamato court to establish Japanese history as fact. Folktales in Japan could be divided on two bases, first on the basis of trends and second, on the basis of characters. First, I would like to discuss about the folktales divided on the basis of trends.

There are four kinds of folktales on the basis of trends:

1. Myths: The Japanese word for myth is Shinwa, which literary means the

Gossipy tales: Instead of saying Gossip tales, I would have translated Sekenbanashi as everyday’s story arguing that it includes funny stories, romantic stories, horror stories, humorous stories and strange stories etc. in other words all the colors and shades of everyday’s life. Transmitters of the Gossipy Tales can be divided into four groups:

1. Traveling craftsmen: It included carpenters, tatami mat makers, wood cutters and smiths, who often visited individual homes and stayed there for days and there they used to share interesting tales with family after the work.

2. Travelling merchants: Merchants who used to sell horses, bowls, fishes, medicines were abundant with tales but due to the short span of stay they narrated only small humors and gossipy tales.

3. Travelling religious men: People such as pilgrims, monk, nun, holymen often took shelters in temples and other religious places, where villagers listened to their tales.

4. Travelling entertainers: They were those people who were expert in story telling art. There were reciters of festivals who used to visit individual houses for to entertain them in day and villagers also used to stay in their inn for entertainment at the night. It included blind professional story teller goze (female) and biwa hoshi (male). No need to mention these blind story tellers resembles to Indian surdas. One can also find some resemblance between travelling entertainers of Japan and Indian