Reading Diary A: Japanese Folk Tales (Lang)

The Old Woman Opens the Box, by J. H. Ford

Link to image

   I have always heard the tales from Japanese culture were very topsy-turvy and expressive with their manner  and morals, and this seems to be true from the tales retold by Lang. This comes out with the tale of the two frogs: one wants to see Kioto and the other wants to see Osaka, the city opposite from the other. They meet and try to help each other see each others' city from a good vantage point. However, they wind up being tricked because when they think they see the other frog's city from their vantage, they mistakenly see their own and conclude that they wasted their time travelling there.
   Then there is the tale of the Sparrow with the Split Tongue, which tells of a sparrow that an old man becomes the recurrent savior of whenever it encounters anything threatening in the wilderness. Eventually, the old man's wife becomes jealous of the bird and how much affection the old man gives it. On a typical day, after the old man has saved the bird from its dangerous circumstance, the wife waits for the old man to leave his house so that she can take care of the bird for good. So, she captured it and slit its tongue, and released it back into the wilderness. Not being shamed in the least about what she had done, she tells her husband exactly what she did when he asks where the sparrow has gone. He leaves into the woods to find the sparrow, and happens upon a little cottage after many hours of searching. In this cottage is a young woman, who claims to be the true form of the sparrow that the old man saved time and time again. She and her sisters show their gratitude by singing and dancing for him, and gave him a choice of a gift: either a large chest or a small one. The old man takes the smaller chest, which he discovers is filled with the most valuable jewels. His wife finds out, and seeks out the sparrow-princess' cottage and demands that she be given the large chest. The sparrow-princess concedes and the old man's wife trudges home with the heavy, enormous chest. However, when she opens it, to her horror, two snakes pop out and kill her. Obviously, the woman was betrayed by her own greed and jealousy.