Kobutori Jiisan

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The demons pull off the lump from the old man's cheek

"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 after joining a party of demons (oni) celebrate and dance for a night.

Textual notes

The tale was translated as The Old Man and the Devils (1886)[1] by James Curtis Hepburn.[2][a]

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.[4][b]

"How an Old Man Lost his Wen" by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1903) was a retelling baseds on a published Japanese text edited by Iwaya Sazanami [ja]).[5] Though not a literal translation by her own admission, it has been assessed as deserving more credit as to its fidelity.[6][c]

There is another translation also using Sazanami Iwaya as the Japanese source. "The Old Man with the Wen" found in Iwaya's Fairy tales of old Japan (1914) credited to Hannah Riddell as translator,[7] although each tale was originally printed separately in 1903,[8] and was it was a translating effort by several women.[9]

A more recent translation effort is "Lump off, Lump On" (1987) Royall Tyler,[10] which also follows the Iwaya texts.

Plot

There was an old man with a lump[11][10] (or wen[12][13]) on the right side of his face.[14][d]

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.[e] He was soon to witness a gathering of strange beings nearby, some one-eyed and some mouth-less.[11][12][10][f] They were the oni[16] (demons or ogres; "devils" being the Christendom equivalent[4]).[g]

The second old man returns home with two lumps on his face

The oni created a great bonfire as light as day. The began to drink sake wine,[17] sing and dance. They old man overcame his fears and was lured to join the dance. His dance greatly entertained the oni, who wanted him to return the next day[18] (or "always"[11]) for an encore. To ensure the old man's return, the oni wanted keep charge 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.[19] The old man was elated to find the lump gone, with not a remnant of it remaining,[11] and no soreness in the cheek where it was removed.[20]

There lived next door an old man who had a big lump on his left cheek.[21] 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.[22] Unfortunately, the left-lump old man did not have the same 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 the piece of flesh which stuck to the clean side of his face,[23][24] so this old man returned home chagrined, now with two lumps on his face.[11][25]

Variants

A 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. The locality of the tale was not given.[26]

Explantory 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.[2] The illustrator for the volume is indeterminate.[3]
  2. ^ Cf. Shippeitaro where the temple becomes a "chapel".
  3. ^ Lucy Fraser, lecturer in Japanese at the University of Queensland, Australia.
  4. ^ In Iwaya (1927), Riddell tr. (1914), and Ozaki (1903), the swelling was a source irritation and he tried to remove it consulting the physician.
  5. ^ [15]; 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).
  6. ^ One-eyed individuals are illustrated in Hepburn (1888) but the details is wanting in the Iwaya (1927) Japanese and Riddell tr. (1914).
  7. ^ Rendered "demons" (Ozaki (1903), Riddell tr. (1914)); "devils" (Hepburn (1888); "monsters" (Tyler (1987)).

References

Citations
  1. ^ Jacobs, Joseph, ed. (1894), "(Notes to) XL The Legend of Knockgrafton", More Celtic Fairy Tales, pp. 230–231; online via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ a b 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
  3. ^ "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.
  4. ^ a b Guth, Christine M. E. (2008), Pellizzi, Francesco (ed.), "Hasegawa's fairy tales: Toying with Japan", Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics, vol. 53/54, Harvard University Press, p. 273, ISBN 087365840X
  5. ^ 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. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help): "..»Sadanami«. This name is a misprint of the nom de plume of Sazanami Iwaya".
  6. ^ Fraser, Lucy. "Foreword" in Ozaki, Yei Theodora (2018). Japanese Folktales: Classic Stories from Japan's Enchanted Past. Tuttle. ISBN 1462920101.
  7. ^ Iwaya (1927) "Kobutori" (in Japanese)
  8. ^ Rogala, Jozef (2001). A Collector's Guide to Books on Japan in English. Taylor & Francis. pp. 102–103. ISBN 9781873410912. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  9. ^ Herring (1988), p. 100. Others such as Fanny Greene.
  10. ^ a b c Tyler (1987) tr. "Lump off, Lump On". pp. 239–241.
  11. ^ a b c d e Hepburn (1888) tr. "The Old Man and the Devils". Reprinted in Hearn (1918) Japanese Fairy Tales. pp. 73–76.
  12. ^ a b Ozaki (1903) tr. "How an Old Man Lost his Wen". pp. 273–282.
  13. ^ Riddell tr. (1914) Part 10 of 12. "The Old Man with the Wen".
  14. ^ 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).
  15. ^ Iwaya (1927), p. 136.
  16. ^ Iwaya (1927), pp. 137–139 Japanese text. First referred to as bakemono (化け物) then interchangeably as oni (鬼).
  17. ^ Iwaya (1927), pp. 138–139.
  18. ^ Iwaya (1927), p. 142. Riddell tr. (1914) Ozaki (1903)
  19. ^ 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 tells a clever lie that the lump was something he would not willingly part with.
  20. ^ Iwaya (1927), p. 143, Riddell tr. (1914), Ozaki (1903).
  21. ^ Hepburn (1888); Iwaya (1927), p. 143 Riddell tr. (1914) Ozaki (1903)
  22. ^ 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".
  23. ^ Hepburn (1888): "brought the lump and stuck it on the other side of his face".
  24. ^ 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", which Ozaki (1903)and Riddell tr. (1914) interpret to be "threw at". But Iwaya (1911) has (おしつける) literally "press at".
  25. ^ 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 dumbell".
  26. ^ "The tumor doubled (瘤二つ, Kobu futatsu)". Mayer, Fanny Hagin; Yanagita, Kunio (1952), "1177324", Folklore Studies, 11 (1), JSTOR 1177324
Bibliography
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