343. Stories without an End

These are told to protect the narrator when listeners insist upon hearing more. They are called “kirinashi banashi” [stories without an end], “nemutai banashi” [sleepy stories], “nagai hanashi” [long stories], and the like. Stories told just to tease those who like stories are also called such.

Aomori: Tsugaru m 26, “A long story” (Nagai mukashi). The crow and horse chestnut.

Hachinohe: MK II 12 59, “The story without an end” (Hatenashi banashi). A man said he would give his daughter to whoever told her stories until she said she had enough. A zatō came and told her a story without an end and received her. She substituted a cow along the way, but he did not see. Various things he said to her are amusing.

Iwate: Kamihei 189, “The story without an end” (Kirinashi banashi). Several stories, such as: a man cut the snake with his short sword chokkiri [completely], and it grew out again perot [suddenly]. He cut it chokkiri, it grew out perot, etc. Shiwa 7, “The two-year sesame and the three-year sesame” (Nisai goma to sansai goma). The grandmother of a chōja liked stories, but she gave in at last. The agreement had been to give the narrator a two year old colt [nisai goma] if he told her enough, but he was given two year old sesame [nisai goma] instead.

Yamagata, Higashitagawa-gun, Karikawa-mura: MK II 7 31, “Sleepy stories” (Nemutai hanashi). One is about what happened on the way to visit Haguro Shrine. A man chased a snake shii [shoo], and it glided away zerot. He chased it shii and it glided away zerot, etc. The second setting is also a pilgrimage to Haguro. Bright autumn leaves were on trees along a river bank and many frogs were in it. When a frog croaked gegu-gegu, a leaf fell potat. A frog croaked gegu-gegu, a leaf fell potat, etc.

Miyagi, Momoo-gun: Kyōdo den 1 182, “A feudal lord who liked tales” (Hanashi suki na tono sama); Kyōdo den 3 117, “An old woman who liked tales” (Mukashi suki na baba). A feudal lord and an old woman got their fill of tales.

Fukushima, Iwaki-gun: Iwaki 184, “The long story” (Nagai hanashi).

Niigata: Sado shū 200, “The long story” (Nagai hanashi). One story is about a boat loaded with 1000 rats. They jumped onto a bridge one at a time as they said, “Hold onto my tail with your teeth, chii-chii-chii.” In the other, a white loin cloth hung down from the sky in clear weather. It still hung there no matter how much it was pulled.

Minamiuonuma-gun: MK I 7 29. One story is about horse chestnuts growing on the bank of a river. The other is about a snake so long that he wrapped himself around Mt. Fuji seven times and a half, and then tried to go home.

Ishikawa: Kaga 132, “The 5000 bushel boat” (Sen goku bune). A 5000 bushel boat packed with frogs.

Nagano, Shimoina-gun: Mukashibanashi 94, 151, “A long scary tale” (Nagakute kowai hanashi) and “The longest story in the world” (Sekai no ichiban nagai hanashi). A story for a feudal lord who liked tales and one about ants that dragged rice one grain at a time.

Gifu, Yoshiki-gun: Hidabito V 6 8, “A tale without an end” (Hatenashi banashi). Four tales with the same title. A chestnut tree on a bank in one. A bride in another taught her husband to say, “The leaves, the stems, and potatoes can be eaten.”

Yamaguchi: Nihon zenkoku 275, “The feudal lord who liked tales” (Hanashi suki no tono sama); Nihon den 172, “The feudal lord who liked tales” (Hanashi suki no tono sama). How a feudal lord who liked tales chose a son-in-law.

Tokushima, Mima-gun: MK II 1 31, “A story worth 1000 ryō” (Hanashi senryō). They filled a 1000-bushel boat with fleas and let a few out at a time. Awa Iyayama 135, “The long story” (Nagai hanashi).

Fukuoka, Munakata-gun: Fukuoka 212, “A tale without an end” (Tsuki- nu hanashi). Many frogs gathered at a lake. A big one jumped in dobon, then a little one chibin.

Ōita: Naori 57, “A story without an end” (Hatenashi banashi). A man sent for a boatload of lice and a boatload of fleas. The lice crawled zoro-zoro and the fleas jumped hot. The story continued for three days and three nights. The chōja was worn out and took the narrator as his son.

Nagasaki, Iōjima: Minzoku ken No. 19 45. No title.

Kagoshima: Koshiki 210, “The tale about a cqrmorant” (U no tori banashi).

344. Nonsense Stories

When material for a story is exhausted, stories without a point, fake stories, are told. They make children laugh with tricky words.

Iwate: Kamihei 186, “A sleepy story” (Nemutai banashi). A blind man discovered a fire in the mountain, a dumb man shouted, and a cripple rushed to put it out.

Akita, Kazuno-gun: Kikimimi 578, “The old sword” (Mukashi katana). Mukashi katana may also mean not to tell a story. A wagon was put onto the point of a sword and pulled from there. When asked what it was, the man said it was a mukashi katana. That is why the story can not continued. This makes children give up.

Yamagata, Higashitagawa-gun: MK II 7 31, “A sleepy story (Nemutai banashi). Once there was an old man and an old woman. The old man rested his gun upon a mortar. That’s a story without a tempo [point], so it can not be told. The play on words is on teppo [gun] and tempo.

Gunma: Kiryū 175, “Greens and wine” (Na to sake). Four stories. In one, na [greens] without sake [wine], making it nasakenai [miserable]. In another, the board [ita] said ita [it hurts] and the dust [gomi] said gomin nasai [pardon]. Such tales.

Ishikawa: Kaga 108, “Acorns” (Shii no mi). A turnip pulled from both ends lost its leaves. That made it hanashi [without leaves or story]. When a man was looking up to the sky, an acorn fell on his face and he lost his nose, hanashi [no nose or story]. There was a child who would not laugh. When they opened his mouth to see, he had no teeth [hanashi, a story or no teeth].

Kagoshima: Koshiki 209, “A fake story” (Uso banashi).

345. The Story is Stripped off

The story got stripped off; the chōja got bald.

Nagasaki

This is for when one has run out of stories. It is just playing with words.

Iwate: Kikimimi 576, “The trip by three” (Sannin tabi).

Miyagi, Momoo-gun: Kyōdo den 2 118, “The failure of the tengu” (Tengu no shippai). The mukashi put on a mu and the hanashi a ha. The mukashi arrived at Mojiriko and the hanashi arrived at Hantenko. Then they went off to Wakudani.

Toyama, Toyama City environs: MK II 6 29. A note. Jingles that are said when story telling starts. Mukashi flew out from yonder, hanashi flew out of the nose, and long ago they rang a bell, today they hit the bottom of a gourd.

Tottori, Yazu-gun, Saigo-mura: Inpaku min III 2 22. No titles, five stories.

Tokushima: Awa Iyayama 98, “Folk tales” (Mukashibanashi) [This is a difficult jingle to render in English about a monkey’s seat, the bird’s tail, and saying there is no more].

Nagasaki: Zen Nagasaki 202, “The story is stripped off” (Mukashi ya muketa). Example.

346. A Story Like a Sanbasō

Kumamoto, Hōtaku-gun: MK II 6 22, “A story like a sanbasō” (Hanashi no sanbasō). Once there was an old man and an old woman. The old man went to the mountains to cut grass and the old woman went to the river to do washing. A kappa came out and called, “Let me pull you, Granny!” She thought he said, “Lend me fire.” She went for a fire brand and offered it to him, saying, “I’ll lend you fire. I’ll lend you fire.” The kappa came out wearing an ebōshi and called, “Honka, honka.”

This was the sign the story was about to start and to get people into the mood. Other examples of this have not been found.

347. Daytime Stories

Stories are not told in the daytime because they say rats will laugh at them.

Iwate: Esashi shi 253, “A common saying” (Rigen). Mentioned. The same in Higashiiwai-gun.

Names, Beginnings and Endings of Folk Tales

[This final section of Yanagita’s work is summarized and explained rather than translated because the examples are for the most part presented in katakana, their meaning not written in standard Japanese. The contents, however, contain matters of importance and must be presented. Items in the original text are listed in the same way as up to this point—their geographical distribution and the written source. Their treatment is highly selective and gives a sample rather than a complete survey. Fanny Hagin Mayer.]

The first matter considered is the expression used to indicate the old orally transmitted folk tale. This is the one used by local narrators or their listeners and does not include newly invented terms by scholars, some of which have found their way into more sophisticated use. The term “mukashibanashi” has two elements in it. “Mukashi” establishes the “long ago” of the tale. Sometimes various degrees of past are indicated, just as it may be in English, but the important point is that no certain time is in mind. Formerly “katari” was used for tales or even the ordinary verb “to tell,” but when it began to be applied to more pretentious tales or literary works, “hanashi” replaced it when referring to the oral tale. In the northeast, “mukashi-ko” is used even now. The “ko” is an ending given to many nouns. In the southwest there are “ge na banashi,” the “ge na” is to establish “so it is said.” In other words, the tale is repeated, but the narrator does not vouch for its truth. “Monogatari” or “ohanashikatari” are also still used as the term in some regions.

The next section lists several types of tales which belong to the oral tradition but which are not folk tales in the usual sense. These will be named and described briefly.

“Hayamonogatari” is a type which depends upon a good memory and a quick tongue for telling. It is usually humorous and brief, a sort of practice piece for a young apprentice story teller who is given a chance to try his skill between numbers performed by an experienced narrator.

“Shūku banashi” depends upon a line of a poem to resolve the story. In literary circles this becomes a refined art of quoting classics or matching lines, but the level in the folk tale is more modest. Sometimes a single line can solve a riddle proposed by a chōja. The clever winner may even be rewarded with the hand of the lovely daughter of the chōja.

“Hotoke mai,” sometimes called “Jizō mai,” is not a dance, as the name might suggest, but a comical song chanted before the door of a home by an itinerant at New Year or a summer festival. There is a bit of bantering with the name Hotoke (Buddha) and the singer is sent along with a donation for his performance.

“Yobanashi” are related at a house where villagers gather for night watches at Kōshin-ko or on Nijūsanya. Offerings of mochi and wine are made and tales are exchanged to pass the time. These are adult tales.

“Toshitori banashi” are told as the family sits up for the New Year. There are a number of genuine folk tales with New Year as central interest and such tales are included.

“Renga banashi” are also tales with an added line of a poem to resolve them. An old example is that of the priest who happened to be holding a piece of mochi he intended to eat alone, but his novice came into the room. The lad exclaimed, “There is no half moon on Fifteenth Night.” The priest reluctantly brought out the rest and handed it to the boy. He said, “The other half was hidden by a cloud.”

“Kyōka banashi” are comical lines of a poem to cover a blunder, perhaps of a new son-in-law in an outlandish remark while visiting his father-in-law. The bride hurriedly revises it as she repeats it to impress her parents with her husband’s cleverness.

“Imoji banashi” are tinker tales. Itinerant tinkers told clever tales as they plied their trade. Their tales tend to be boasts, hence the saying, “Like a tinker’s tale” for somebody’s bragging.

“Komori banashi” are jingles which include in them references to folk tales, much like counting lines of children who bounce a ball, but no gestures accompany them.

“Usotoki” are tales of an only survivor. There is nobody left to affirm or deny the account of, for example, the cave-in of a fabulously rich vein of gold told by the only survivor.

The third matter discussed is that of leading characters of humorous tales. These stories are “odoke banashi,” a number of which are included in the main body of the text. The characters have names which sound amusing to Japanese, such as Hikohachi, Kichigo, Kitchyomu, and the like. Some of the men are numbskulls and others are rascals, their names changing with the region but the contents of tales resembling each other. In some instances the episodes are strung together in a series, but usually they are brief, unrelated events.

Formulas are the last matter presented. The opening formula of the folk tale varies according to region, but it establishes two points. The tale is about long ago and the narrator is only repeating what he has heard and does not vouch for the truth of the tale. This is in marked contrast to the opening of a legend, which usually establishes the place where the event occurred and then relates the circumstances. The closing formulas come in a greater variety of form and meaning. It may be as brief as “ton,” a signal that the end has come, or a jingle of several lines which shows some ingenuity and humor. Its purpose is to indicate the end of the tale, that is all there is to it, or that is how the narrator heard it. Besides these, there are those added to state the characters prospered ever after or that they lived in ease or “medetashi, medetashi,” which means everything turned out fine. These formulas are not rendered in standard Japanese and their meaning is often obscure. No attempt has been made to render them in English in this translation because the jingle itself would escape.

The other formula is the phrase employed by listeners who chime in as the tale progresses. It is something like the AMEN heard in old time camp meetings which was intended on one hand to encourage the narrator to continue and in the other to express the listener’s approval and anticipation of what was to follow. The word is brief, varying as to region, but it is very necessary to the successful rendition of the story.