Reading Diary Week Seven cont.: Japanese Fairy Tales

The Goblin of Adachigahara

• A monk was traveling one night and got lost in an empty plain, he found shelter in an old woman's hut
• when she went to get more firewood he looked around her place finding a room filled with skeletons
• He then released she was going to kill him, she was the goblin he had heard stories of 
• So he ran away and ran all night with her chasing him until daylight broke and she vanished

The Ogre of Rashomon

• A brave knight fights a large scary ogre seizing his arm in the battle
• The ogre returns as an old woman to retrieve his arm and escapes before he can be harmed again
• The ogres never returned to the city out of fear of this brave knight

The Story of Princess Hase

• She was born via prayers from her parents who were having trouble conceiving
• Her mother died when she was young but still taught her manners
• Her new stepmother hated her and treated her awful, even tried to poison her but accidentally poisoned her son instead
• She then had her sent away while her father was on business
• The servant sent to kill her decided to just stay with her in the forest until her father returned
• Upon his return he found his daughter in the wood and his second wife ran away for fear of what the father would say to her for banishing his daughter
• the daughter and father lived a happy peaceful life after that

Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908).

The princess being rescued by her father