Kobutori Jiisan

"Kobutori Jiisan" (こぶとりじいさん, Kobutori jīsan) literally "Lump-removing Old Man" is a Japanese Folktale about an old man who lost his lump (or wen) after joining a party of demons (oni) celebrate and dance for a night.

Old man with lump sees the oni marching.―Cover of the 1886 translation.

The tale is a rendition of a tale about a woodcutter (firewood-gatherer) from the early 13th-century anthology Uji Shūi Monogatari.

Textual notes

The tale, which may be known in Japanese as "Kobutori" (瘤取り),[1] "Kobutori Jiisan" (瘤取り爺さん),[2] or "Kobutori jijii" (瘤取り爺い),[3] is arguably among the top ten native fairy tales that are frequently recounted to children in modern Japan.[3]

English translations

The tale was translated as The Old Man and the Devils (1886)[4] by James Curtis Hepburn.[5][lower-alpha 1]

Hepburn translated the oni as "devils" where a more modern editions might give "demons" or "ogres", but it was commonplace during this time period to replace native Japanese concepts with equivalent Christian ones in these translated stories.[7][lower-alpha 2]

"How an Old Man Lost his Wen" by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1903) was a retelling based on a published Japanese text edited by Sazanami Iwaya.[8] Though not a literal translation by her own admission, it has been assessed as deserving more credit as to its fidelity.[9][lower-alpha 3]

There was one other translation also using Sazanami Iwaya as the Japanese textual source, namely "The Old Man with the Wen" translated by M. E. Kirby (volume 10 of 12 in the Iwaya's Fairy tales of Old Japan series, Eigaku-Shimpo-sha, 1903).[10][11] However, when the tale was reissued in the compendium edition Iwaya's Fairy tales of Old Japan (1914), only Hannah Riddell was given translator credit.Riddell tr. (1914)[lower-alpha 4]

A similar version "Story of the Man with the Wen", which names the locale as "mount Taiko", was printed in the Transactions of the Japan Society in 1885.[13] A more recent translation effort is "Lump off, Lump On" (1987) by Royall Tyler.[14]

Plot
The man's lump is taken by the oni (devils).
The second old man returns home with two lumps on his face

There was an old man with a lump[15][14] (or wen[16][17]) on the right side of his face.[18][lower-alpha 5] Ozaki's translation describes the lump to be "like a tennis-ball", while the Spanish translation makes the lump to be the size of a peach (Spanish: melocotón).[19][lower-alpha 6]

One day he went into the mountain to cut wood, and was caught in the rain. He took refuge in the hollow of a tree.[lower-alpha 7] He was soon to witness a gathering of strange beings nearby, some one-eyed and some mouth-less.[15][16][14][lower-alpha 8] They were the oni[22] (demons or ogres; "devils" being the Christendom equivalent[7]).[lower-alpha 9]

The oni created a great bonfire as light as day. The began to drink sake wine,[23] sing and dance. They old man overcame his fears and was lured to join the dance. The greatly entertained oni wanted him to return the next day[24] (or "always"[15]) for an encore. To ensure the old man's return, the oni wanted keep custody of some valuable possession, and of all things, decided the old man's lump should be taken as pledge. They then proceed to remove the unwanted tumor.[25] The old man was elated to find the lump gone, with not a remnant of it remaining,[15] and no soreness in the cheek where it was removed.[26]

There lived next door an old man who had a big lump on his left cheek.[27] When he heard his neighbor's story about losing the lump, he wanted to emulate, and therefore asked to take the place of performing in front of the oni, and the neighbor yielded him the opportunity. The left-lump old man went to the same tree hollow, and when the oni assembled, the chief demon was particularly eagerly awaiting.[28] Unfortunately, the left-lump old man did not have the same level of skill in the art of dancing, and was a disappointment to the demons, who bid him to take back his lump and leave. And the demons slapped on (or threw) the piece of flesh which stuck to the clean side of his face,[29][30] and this old man returned home chagrined, now with two lumps on his face.[15][31]

Origins

This folktale can be traced to the tale collection Uji Shūi Monogatari compiled in early 13th century.[13][21] The medieval version has been translated as "How Someone Had a Wen Removed by Demons".[21]

Here the man explicitly "made his living gathering firewood". The oni demons are of assorted variety, and some are picturesquely described: red ones wearing blue, black ones wearing red and sporting loincloths (or wearing a red loincloth), some one-eyed, and some mouthless. The medieval version concludes with a one-liner moral cautioning against envy.[21][32] Also it is added in the variant text that the lump was the size of an orange (大柑子, ōkōji), and this prevented him from engaging in a profession that mingles with people.[21][33] It is speculated this refers to the citrus variety known today as natsumikan.[34]

Analysis

Variants

The version given by A. B. Mitford in 1871 "The Elves and the Envious Neighbour" features two men with a wen on the forehead, and the second visitor earns another wen on top of his own. The second man could not be faulted for his poor dancing or companionship, and it was just a case of mistaken identity. Mitford"s version also concludes with a moral against envy.[35]

Another variant called The tumor doubled (瘤二つ, Kobu futatsu), where the protagonist priest has a tumor over the eye, was collected by Kunio Yanagita. Here, the tumor is taken by the tengu ("long-nosed demons"), and given to a second priest with a tumor. Here again, the second priest suffered his ill fate despite his dancing being entertaining enough. The locality of the tale was not given.[36][37]

Analogues

The kobutori tale has been finely classified as tale type AT 503A "The Gifts of the Tengu" by Hiroko Ikeda,[38][39] but is type 503 "The Gifts of the Little People"[40] for purposes of cross-referencing international analogues.

Asian analogues

There is a Chinese analogue to be found in Yang Maoqian's book Xiaolinping (1611).[lower-alpha 10][41] A version written in Chinese also occurs in Sango (産語) edited by Dazai Shundai and published 1749,[lower-alpha 11] and purports to be a reprint of texts lost before the Han Dynasty, but the general consensus is that this is "faked/mocked ancient text" (疑古文) by the editor.[43][42]

A number of specimens of the analogous tale also occurs in Korea.[lower-alpha 12][41] Tōru Takahashi translated one version of the Korean Kobutori (1910). Here the first old man deceives the goblins (dokkaebi) and sells off his lump as the source of his bel canto voice. The second old man with a lump was a fine singer too, but receives the detached lump which goblins discovered to be useless.[45] Chʻoe In-hak's selected anthology (1974) also includes a kobutori tale (in Japanese).[46]

The tale in Hangul, entitled Hogtten-iyagi or "Wen-taking story" (혹뗀이야기) was later printed in the 1923 edition of the Korean-language Reader,[lower-alpha 13] which also gave an illustration of the goblin. But the textbook was issued under Japanese control (Government-General of Korea).[47][48] Kim Jong-dae of Chung-Ang University who is an expert on the Korean goblin thinks the tale was imported into Korea from Japan in the Colonial Period (1910–1945).[49][50]

However, scholar Bak Mikyung who earned her doctorate at Kyoto University, has pointed out that if the story "The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs" printed by Andrew Lang in 1892[51] is a Korean tale, this would set the date of its establishment in Korea to at least the pre-colonial era. Although Lang represents the tale as translated from the Chinese (it is also set in China), the protagonist's name Hok means "wen" or "lump" in Korean and may indicate its actual origins.[50][52]

European parallels

Charles Wycliffe Goodwin noticed that the Japanese "Kobutori" tale closely paralleled the Irish "The Legend of Knockgrafton", presenting his finding in 1875, though this was not printed for the public at large until 1885.[13][lower-alpha 14] The Irish tale had been published by Thomas Crofton Croker c. 1825, and Goodwin first noticed the similarity after reading Mitford's brief version of the Japanese tale. Goodwin subsequently obtained a fuller version of the story which he printed in his paper.[13] The resemblance of "The Legend of Knockgrafton" to the Japanese folktale was also noted by Joseph Jacobs in 1894.[4] Moreton J. Walhouse, another jurist serving in India, also regurgitated this parallel in a 1897 paper entitled "Folklore Parallels and Coincidences".[54]

Joseph Bédier in 1895 noted the resemblance between the Japanese tale and a tale from Picardy which contains the same formula as the Irish one: the fairies sing the beginning days of the week, and the second hunchback upsets them by adding days.[40][55]

Explanatory notes
  1. This title was No. 7 of the English-translated Japanese Fairy Tale Series, produced by wood-block printing on crepe paper by Hasegawa Takejirō.[5] The illustrator for the volume is indeterminate.[6]
  2. Cf. Shippeitaro where the temple becomes a "chapel".
  3. Lucy Fraser, lecturer in Japanese at the University of Queensland, Australia.
  4. There were several translators other than Riddell (e.g., Fanny Greene), who may have been responsible for Englishing any given tale.[12][1]
  5. In Iwaya (1927), Riddell tr. (1914), and Ozaki (1903), the swelling was a source irritation and he tried to remove it consulting the physician.
  6. Compare with the "orange" size lump (more precisely a "large-type orange", conjectured be natsumikan), according to the medieval Uji Shūi Monogatari version of the tale. See below.
  7. [20] A hollow (うろ) by the root of a large tree. In Ozaki (1903), the old man first sees a charcoal-burner's hut. There are additional details in Iwaya (1927), p. 136–137 (and Riddell tr. (1914))
    the old man sees a flash of lightning and chants "Kuwabara kuwabara". He then expected to see "the other wood-cutters" (他の木樵達). Note that in the medieval tale he is unequivocably a wood-cutter who earned his living selling firewood.[21]
  8. One-eyed individuals are illustrated in Hepburn (1888) but the details is wanting in the Iwaya (1927) Japanese and Riddell tr. (1914). One-eyed and mouthless contingents in the oni horde are mentioned in the medieval Uji Shūi Monogatari version. See below.
  9. Rendered "demons" Ozaki (1903), Riddell tr. (1914); "devils" Hepburn (1888); "monsters" Tyler (1987).
  10. As already noted during the Edo Period by Kitamura Nobuyo in his Kiyūshōran (1830).
  11. A woodcutter with a lump on his nape has it removed by oni, and a different man of the hamlet with a lump on his neck gets a second lump.[42]
  12. Chʻoe In-hak (崔仁鶴（チェ・インハク）) 최인학 Kankoku mukashibanashi no kenkyū classifies the Korean version as "476 the old man with his lump removed", and specifies 11 tale examples.[41][44]
  13. Korean: 보통학교조선어독본; Hanja: 普通學校朝鮮語讀本; RR: Botong hakgyo joseoneo dokbon; MR: Potʻong hakkyo Chosŏnŏ tokpon.
  14. And in the interim, the observation of the parallel attributed to Goodwin had been printed in 1878 by George(s) Bousquet, a fellow jurist-folklorist resident in Japan.[53]

References
Citations
  1. Iwaya (1927) "Kobutori" (in Japanese)
  2. Seki, Keigo, ed. (1927). "16. Kobutori Jiisan" 16 こぶとり爺さん. Nihon no mukashibanashi dai-ichi (Kobutori jiisan, Kachikachi yama) 日本の昔ばなし 第1 (こぶとり爺さん・かちかち山) (in Japanese). Iwanami.
  3. Lanham, Betty B.; Shimura, Masao (January–March 1967), "Folktales Commonly Told American and Japanese Children: Ethical Themes of Omission and Commission", The Journal of American Folklore, 80 (315): 36 et passim., doi:10.2307/538416, JSTOR 538416
  4. Jacobs, Joseph, ed. (1894), "(Notes to) XL The Legend of Knockgrafton", More Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 230–231; online via Internet Archive.
  5. Sharf, Frederic Alan (1994), Takejiro Hasegawa: Meiji Japan's Preeminent Publisher of Wood-block-illustrated Crepe-paper Books, Peabody Essex Museum Collections, vol. 130, Salem: Peabody Essex Museum
  6. "The Old Man & the Devils" 『瘤取』（Kobutori）. Crepe-Paper Books and Woodblock Prints at the Dawn of Cultural Enlightenment in Japan. Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  7. Guth, Christine M. E. (2008), Pellizzi, Francesco (ed.), "Hasegawa's fairy tales: Toying with Japan", Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, Harvard University Press, 53/54, p. 273, ISBN 087365840X
  8. Ozaki (1903). J. Fairy Book: "translated from.. Sadanami Sanjin". Herring, Ann King (1988). "Early Translations of Japanese Fairy-Tales and Children's Literature". Phaedrus: 100.: "..»Sadanami«. This name is a misprint of the nom de plume of Sazanami Iwaya".
  9. Fraser, Lucy. "Foreword" in Ozaki, Yei Theodora (2018). Japanese Folktales: Classic Stories from Japan's Enchanted Past. Tuttle. ISBN 1462920101.
  10. Rogala, Jozef (2001). A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English. Taylor & Francis. pp. 102–103. ISBN 9781873410912.
  11. Iwaya's Fairy Tales of Old Japan. Eigaku-Shinpo-sha's Catalog in : Ishikawa, R. (1906), A Garland of Flower-poems, Tokyo: Eigaku-Shimpo-Sha
  12. Herring (1988), p. 100.
  13. Goodwin, Charles Wycliffe Goodwin (1885), "On Some Japanese Legends", Transactions the Asiatic Society of Japan, 3 (Part 2): 46–52
  14. Tyler (1987) tr. "Lump off, Lump On". pp. 239–241.
  15. Hepburn (1888) tr. "The Old Man and the Devils". Reprinted in Hearn (1918) Japanese Fairy Tales. pp. 73–76.
  16. Ozaki (1903) tr. "How an Old Man Lost his Wen". pp. 273–282.
  17. Riddell tr. (1914) Part 10 of 12. "The Old Man with the Wen". Originally Kirby tr. (1903), volume 10 of 12.
  18. kobu (瘤) is "lump" or "wen". The tale says it grows on the right side (Hepburn (1888), and Iwaya (1927) in Japanese), but was overlooked by Riddell tr. (1914).
  19. Espada, Gonzalo J. de la, tr., ed. (1914). El viejo y los demonios. Cuentos del Japón viejo, No. 6 (in Spanish). Anonymous (illustr.). T. Hasegawa.
  20. Iwaya (1927), p. 136.
  21. Shirane, Haruo, ed. (1894), "A Collection of Tales from Uji", Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 329–332, ISBN 0231157304
  22. Iwaya (1927), pp. 137–139 Japanese text. First referred to as bakemono (化け物) then interchangeably as oni (鬼).
  23. Iwaya (1927), pp. 138–139.
  24. Iwaya (1927), p. 142. Riddell tr. (1914) Ozaki (1903)
  25. In Iwaya (1927), p. 142, Riddell tr. (1914), Ozaki (1903), the demons arrive at their own conclusion that the lump is some sort of lucky charm, without the old man's contrivance. In Hepburn (1888), the old man encourages them to believe it by saying the lump was something he would not willingly part with.
  26. Iwaya (1927), p. 143, Riddell tr. (1914), Ozaki (1903).
  27. Hepburn (1888); Iwaya (1927), p. 143 Riddell tr. (1914) Ozaki (1903)
  28. Iwaya (1927), p. 145: kashira no ōoni (頭の大鬼) literally "chief big-demon" Riddell tr. (1914): "King Demon", Ozaki (1903): "the demon chief".
  29. Hepburn (1888): "brought the lump and stuck it on the other side of his face".
  30. Iwaya (1927), p. 146: (瘤をば頬（ほっ）ぺためがけて打ちつけ) literally "struck aiming at the cheek", and Iwaya (1911) has the (おしつける) literally "press at", which Ozaki (1903) and Riddell tr. (1914) translate as "threw at". The medieval tale actually agrees: (今片方の顔に投げ付けたりければ) tr. "threw the wen at the old man's other cheek"..[21]
  31. Iwaya (1927), p. 146: the two lumps looked like calabash (瓢箪, hyōtan), which Ozaki (1903) closely renders as "Japanese gourd".Riddell tr. (1914) gives "ends of a dumbbell".
  32. Tsukamoto (1922), pp. 4–9 (in Japanese)
  33. Tsukamoto (1922) ed., p. 4 note. The variant's plain text @ Komazawa U.
  34. Seisen-ban Nihon kokugo dai-jiten 精選版 日本国語大辞典. s. v. "ōkōji 大柑子" via Kotobank. Accessed 2020-04-24.
  35. Mitford, A. B., ed. (1894), "The Elves and the Envious Neighbour", Tales of Old Japan In Two Volumes, London: Macmillan, pp. 276–277
  36. Yanagita, Kunio, ed. (1941) [1934], "Kobu futatsu" 瘤二つ, Nihon no mukashibanashi 日本の昔話, Mikuni Shobō, pp. 155–157
  37. "The tumor doubled (瘤二つ, Kobu futatsu)". Mayer, Fanny Hagin; Yanagita, Kunio (1952), "'Yanagita Kunio': Japanese Folk Tales", Folklore Studies, 11 (1), doi:10.2307/1177324, JSTOR 1177324
  38. Ikeda, Hiroko (1971), A type and motif index of Japanese folk-literature, FF Communications 209, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, p. 128, ISBN 9780873658409
  39. Antoni, Klaus (1991), "Momotaro (The Peach Boy) and the Spirit of Japan: Concerning the Function of a Fairy Tale in Japanese Nationalism of the Early Showa Age", Asian Folklore Studies, 50: 182, n19, doi:10.2307/1178189, JSTOR 1178189
  40. Matsubara, Hideichi (1990-01-01), "The Migration of a Buddhist Theme", in Toyama, Jean Yamasaki; Ochner, Nobuko (eds.), Literary Relations East and West: Selected Essays, III, University of Hawaii at Manoa, pp. 162–165, ISBN 9780824813246
  41. Oshima (1984)[1977]. p. 302.
  42. Nagayoshi, Masao (1989), "Dazai Shundai to Sango" 太宰春台と「産語」 [Dazai Syundai and Sango], Bulletin of the Faculty of Literature, Otemon Gakuin University (23): 311–309
  43. Nagayoshi 1989, pp. 313–311.
  44. Kawamori, Hiroshi (1991-03-30), "Nihon mukashibanashi ni okeru tairitsu no kōzō" 日本昔話における対立の構造--隣モチ-フを中心に [Typical Antagonism Revealed in Japanese Folktales], Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History (in Japanese), 32: 14–15, doi:10.15024/00000469
  45. Takahashi, Toru (1910), "Kobutori" 瘤取, Chōsen no monogatarishū 朝鮮の物語集, Seoul: Nikkan shobō, pp. 1–5
  46. Chʻoe (1974), p. 55.
  47. Hayashi, Shizuyo (2011-03-31), "Shōchō to shite no oni to tokkebi - kodomo ni kataru mukashibanashi" 象徴としての"鬼"と"トッケビ" -子どもに語る昔話 [“Oni” and “Tokkebi” as Symbols－From Folktales for Children－], The Bulletin of Kansai University of International Studies (12): 30
  48. "An Audible Witness to History". National Museum of Korean Contemporary History. 2019. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  49. Kim, Jong-dae (April 5, 2017). "Dokkaebi: The Goblins of Korean Myth". Korean Literature Now. 35. Retrieved 2020-04-29.
  50. Bak, Mikyung (2014), "The Folktale "Hokpuri Yongkam" and the Visual Representation of the Korean Dokkaebi", Blucher Design Proceedings, 1 (5): 231–236, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.968.2127; pdf@Semantic Scholar
  51. Lang 1906 [1892]. "The Story of Hok Lee and the Dwarfs". The Green Fairy Book. pp. 229–233.
  52. Bak, Mikyung (2015-09-24). Dokkebi to Kankoku no shikaku bunka 20 seiki, Kankoku no taishū bunka ni okeru dokkebi no imēji no keisei to teichaku katei ドッケビと韓国の視覚文化 20世紀、韓国の大衆文化におけるドッケビの視覚イメージの形成と定着過程 (Ph. D.). Kyoto University. doi:10.14989/doctor.k19250. (Abstract only)
  53. Bousquet, George[s] (15 October 1878), "Le Japon littéraire", Revue des Deux Mondes (1829-1971), Troisième période, 29 (4), JSTOR 44752662
  54. Walhouse, M. J. (September 1897). "Folklore Parallels and Coincidences". Folklore. 8 (3): 196. doi:10.1080/0015587X.1897.9720418. JSTOR 1253775. JSTOR 25513929
  55. Bédier, Joseph (1895). Les fabliaux: études de littérature populaire et d'histoire littéraire du moyen âge. Cuentos del Japón viejo, No. 6 (in French). É. Bouillon. p. 276.
Bibliography

Chʻoe, In-hak, ed. (1974), Chōsen mukashibnashi hyakusen 朝鮮昔話百選 (in Japanese), Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai

  • Hearn, Lafcadio, ed. (1918). Japanese Fairy Tales. New York: Boni and Liveright. pp. 73–76.
  • Oshima, Takehiko (1984), "Uji shūi monogatari to mukashibanashi" 『宇治拾遺物語』と昔話, in Seki, Keigo (ed.), 昔話と文学 (in Japanese), pp. 302–. First appeared in Setsuwa bungaku kenkyū (12), 1977, pp. 49–56.
  • Tsukamoto, Tetsuzō, ed. (1922). "3 Oni ni kobu toraruru koto (Vol 1.3)" 三 鬼に瘤とらるゝ事[巻一・三]. Uji shūi monogatari 宇治拾遺物語 (in Japanese). Yūhōdō shoten. pp. 4–9.
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