TALES OF OLD JAPAN.* WIIETHER regarded from the outside or
from the inside, from an artistic or from a literary point of view, this book must be con- sidered one of the most remarkable productions ever submitted to the English reader. Our first glance shows us a tea-kettle which has developed the head, tail, and limbs of a badger, and is dancing on a tight-rope while it holds up an umbrella. We open the first volume, and meet with a picture of a man who seems to have had an ink-bottle broken upon him, and to be much distressed because the black streams are coursing down his legs. Turning to the text for an explanation of the mystery, we are overwhelmed with unpronounceable names, and before we have conquered this first difficulty, the strangeness of the contents shows us that we are in a new world. What can this place be where murder is an hourly occurrence and is only varied by suicide, where the owners of land have more than feudal power, where foxes and badgers practise magic arts upon mankind, and where families keep the centenary of a cat's death ? The mixture of legend, history, and modern ex- perience makes it difficult to class all these oddities under one single head, and the fact that Japan has so long been closed to Europeans, that previous writers on the country have been con- tented with a superficial view, necessarily adds to our perplexity. We may safely assume that the habits of an Eastern nation are
• Tales of Old Japan. By A. B. Mitt ord. Second Secretary to the British Legation its Japan. 2 vols. London : Macmillan. 1871. diametrically opposed to European ideas, but there is in general some point of contact. Some one, we forget who, has remarked that the wildest exercise of the imagination cannot enable us to conceive anything which is not in some sense a modification of what exists on earth. Writers who have peopled the moon, or the stars, or impossible countries, or islands floating in the air, with a peculiar race of beings, have not created anything really new, but have varied their own experience. In like manner, the nations which bear the smallest resemblance to us are human beings like our- selves, have the same wants and the same passions, and perhaps an agreement in essentials even where there is the greatest apparent difference. Yet these Tales of Old Japan almost seem to pass the boundary. It is not only that so much is difficult to understand, but that when things are understood they cannot be reconciled with any conceivable principle. If we take the manner in which justice is administered, or the system of government, or the rela- tions of classes, we are at a loss to see what is the foundation on which they rest. In one story, for instance, we have a noble sen- tenced to death for insulting another within the precincts of the palace. His retainers resolve to take vengeance on the man who caused his death, and carry their design into execution after long delay and the most careful preparation. Their act is also punished with death, but everybody admires them, they are protected and feasted on their way home, and their tombs are even now kept in honour. Another story tells us of a great lord who, wishing to be revenged on a man who had insulted him, invited his enemy to his castle, and had him murdered in a bath. Nothing seems to have been done to the great lord, and we are almost led to infer that murder, if done in your own house, is legitimate, while, if done in another man's house, it is a capital offence, and if it is done in the street degradation is added to the penalty. Mr. Mitford certainly says that "in the old days if a noble was murdered and died outside his own house, he was disgraced and his estates were forfeited," which may be a part of the same theory. But the impunity which attends an act at one time, and at another gives way to extreme severity, is a remarkable feature of most of the stories. It is even stated in the rules laid down on the subject of capital punishment that more regard is to be paid to a deliberate murderer than to one who has given way to a sudden impulse. 4' When a man has murdered another, having made up his mind to abide by the consequences, then that man's execution should be carried through with all honour. When a man kills another on the spot, in a fit of ungovernable passion, and then is bewildered and dazed by his own act, the same pains need not be taken to conduct matters punctiliously."
The account of the ceremony of hara-kiri, from which we have just quoted, and which is given in an appendix, has many curious details, and the frequent recurrence of the name in all the stories renders it necessary to have a clear understanding of the process. Whenever a Japanese of rank is condemned to death, it becomes his duty to perform hara-kiri, or in other words to disembowel himself, although it appears that a mere formal compliance with this part of the sentence is sufficient. "If the principal," we are told, "urgently requests to be allowed really to disembowel himself, his wish may, according to circumstances, be granted ;" but the usual course is to strike off his head when he leans forward to take the dagger. Great dignity attaches to this mode of death, and we read that it is sheer nonsense to look upon the place where hare-kini has been performed as polluted. In the story which relates the ven- geance of the retainers on the noble who caused their lord's death, the anxiety of these men not to dishonour their victim is con- spicuous. They treat him with the greatest courtesy, and entreat him over and over again to perform hara-kiri. But as, at last, they find it vain to urge him to die the death of a nobleman, they force him down and cut off his head simply. Having done this, they go home and wait till the Government orders them to put themselves to death. The whole story is significant of Japanese customs. The fidelity of the retainers who cannot live under the same heaven with their lord's enemy ; the elaborate care with which they disguise themselves so as to become ac- quainted with the castle in which he lives ; the manner in which the chief retainer gives himself up to drunken and dissolute ways, divorcing his wife and driving away his children, so as to lull sus- picion; the repentance of a stranger who was deceived by such conduct, and who afterwards atones for an insult to this retainer by performing hara-kiri at his tomb, bear witness to a state of things with which we can have nothing in common. The relics of these retainers are still preserved, and comprise the armour made with their own hands out of wads of leather secured by pieces of iron ; the plan of the enemy's house, which one of them obtained by marrying the builder's daughter ; and the receipt given to the priests of a certain temple for the head which, after being cut off, was placed in their keeping. After this story, one of the most charac- teristic is called "The Ghost of Sakura." It gives us the history of a farmer who was crucified by the lord of his village for present- ing a petition against excessive taxation to the Shogun, as the Tycoon is called in these volumes. The tenants of this lord had done all in their power to have their grievances redressed, but ineffectually, and as they were bowed to the ground by the taxes laid upon them, they must either starve or appeal to the Shogun. The appeal produced the desired effect ; the officers who had increased the taxes were removed and punished, some of them having to perform hara-kiri, but the farmer, whose courage had righted this wrong, was sentenced to crucifixion. His wife, too, was crucified with him, and their three boys, aged thirteen, ten,
and seven, were beheaded. So far the story is historical, but with the execution of the family it takes a legendary aspect. The lord is haunted by the ghost of the farmer, and is tormented in so many ways that at length he has to canonize his victim. This tardy repentance lays the ghost of the farmer; the lord is no longer troubled ; the newly canonized saint befriends him ; and he is raised to higher honours when the Shogun is "pleased to depart this life." If this story violates nearly all our notions of morality, it is significant of the power of the great nobles. In another place we find that the only way in which the Shogun could put a atop to a feud between two mighty factions was to cause one of the leaders to be secretly poisoned. A physi- cian was found who was willing to administer the draught, although it was necessary that he himself should drink half of it. Such is the staple of these Japanese tales. Scarcely one is free from blood- shed, and while cruelty is received with submission and treachery with self-sacrifice, courage does not always meet with a fit reward.
The quaintness of the sermons which are translated by Mr. Mitford, and of some of the legends, superstitions, and fairy tales which he has collected, is a relief from the barbarity of ancient manners. We find the Japanese preachers great adepts in the art of illustrating their subject by lively and familiar anecdotes. "I have a little tale to tell you," is a phrase that recurs now and then ; "be so good as to wake up from your drowsiness and listen attentively." And then follows the story about the shell-fish which prided itself on the security afforded by its thick shell till, on looking cautiously round after an alarm, it found itself in a fishmonger's shop with a price-label on its back ; or that of the men who went to listen to the stags roaring, and found instead that a stag was listening to their lamentations ; or that of the frogs who climbed to the top of a hill to see a strange country, and, owing to their eyes being placed at the back of their heads, were all the while looking at the one from whence they started. We should think that if Japanese congregations ever yielded to drowsi- ness, they would soon prick up their ears when such stories as these were promised. A practical application is always added, and due reference is made to the sayings of wise men of old, amongst whom we recognize Confucius under the name of Koshi. Some of the fairy tales resemble those with which we are familiar, while others have features of novelty. In the first class we may rank the tongue-cat sparrow, the old couple and their dog, the two neighbours with wens on their foreheads. All these are marked by the grand principle of fairy retribution, which makes the same gift have exactly opposite workings, according to the character of the receiver. Thus in the tongue-cut sparrow, the old man who has been kind to the bird receives a basket full of gold and silver, while the old woman who has slit its tongue also receives a basket, but it turns out to be full of hobgoblins. The two old people who are kind to their dog find a buried treasure, while another old couple can dig up nothing but filth. The first man who has a wen on his forehead is relieved of it by the elves, with whom he has a revel ; the second, trying the same plan, has his neighbour's wen added to his own. There is much greater originality in the story of a tea-kettle which belonged to a priest in some temple, and which one day put forth the head and tail of a badger, and began flying about the room. The priest and his pupils were so alarmed that they forced the kettle into a box, meaning to throw it away in some distant place, but as after a time it resumed its natural shape, they sold it for twenty copper coins to a tinker. The new owner of the kettle was advised to take it about as a show, and make it dance on the tight-rope ; he did this with such success that he grew very rich, and then the kettle was taken back to the temple, laid up there as a precious treasure, and worshipped as a saint. We do not know how far the miraculous powers of the kettle are to be attributed to the badger's head, but that animal plays an important part in Japanese legend. It is said to produce
the most exquisite music by drumming delicately on its distended belly, and by this means, watching in lonely places, it hires be- nighted wayfarers to their destruction. Sometimes it assumes the shape of a beautiful maiden in distress, but is detected by the dry- ness of the clothes it wears in the midst of a pelting shower. A grateful badger repays a priest's kindness by fusing the refuse of gold mines, and procuring him money enough to be spent on prayers for his soul. A wicked badger boils a man's wife for soup, and sets the dish before her husband. Magical powers are also ascribed to foxes, some of whom bewitch a man and shave his head. The story of "The Foxes' Wedding" is most remarka- ble for the drawing which accompanies it, and in which we see a little fox being taken out of its bath-tub, while some of its brothers and sisters are already tucked in and laid on a mat- tress. The figure of the little fox is quite delicious, as it stretches out its small forelegs with an infantine gesture, and looks up pleadingly in the face of the fox-nurse who has been washing it. We have hardly spoken of the other illustrations, all of which are drawn and engraved by Japanese artists, and are the very strangest possible specimens of design. But where everything is original some omissions must be excused, and one need merely open this book at any of the drawings to appreciate their character.
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