MUKASHIBANASHI 9: LORD RICESTRAW

MUKASHIBANASHI 9: LORD RICESTRAW (DAIETSU)

Or, the one where a humble young man rises to fame, fortune, and nobility by a series of good deeds, each one done in consequence of a previous good deed, in a Chain of Deals such as those in the film Pay It Forward or chain tales such as "Piggy Won't Go Over the Fence" (type 2030) or "The Death of the Little Hen/Tittymouse" (type 2021). The chain reaction in this story features human rather than animal, plant, and object actants, which makes the approach to the premise different to the one heard in Western folktales and closer to postmodern retellings such as the film.

Mukashi mukashi, once upon a time, an orphan stripling with nothing to his name but the clothes he wore --homeless, penniless, friendless, and unmarried, and as thin as a rice straw--, went to a shrine of Kannon, the Goddess of Mercy, to pray for good fortune. 
Within the shrine, on that very summer morn, he heard a friendly female voice which came from above giving him advice to:
 "Pick up the first thing you see after leaving the shrine." 
Convinced that the goddess had given him a sign, he rushed out and stumbled on the steps, fortunately landing unscathed, next to... a rice straw which was on the roadside!
Remembering Kannon's advice, our lad Daietsu picked up the rice straw as he rose up.
As he trudged along the rice pads, a dragonfly's path chanced to cross with that of our young man. It was a fine bug, the length of a pinky finger and the wingspan of two, the colour of lapis lazuli with wings like the finest lacework, and it landed right on the straw he was holding.
So on Daietsu went with some glad company perched on his lucky straw. It was a lovely bug, best to tie it up with a thread around its waist and the other end round the straw lest it fly away, and so he did. Some time later that day, he came across a mother and child, both looking rather weary. And it came to chance that all three stopped for a rest at the same wayside spot, flushed and tired as they were. Yet the little child's eyes lit up as they saw the pretty blue dragonfly; it would make a nice pet bug indeed! So the lad gave the dragonfly away, and the mother, in exchange, gave the kind-hearted young man the peony she wore in her hair.
It was a lovely peony, a true Eastern rose with ring upon ring of soft rose-red petals.
After thanking one another and taking their leave, on our lad went with the flower in his cleavage, taking it out and watering it in the rice pads every now and then to keep it fresh. It looked as if he wore his heart on the outside! After a while, Daietsu saw another young man his own age, with his head buried in his hands, resting on a stump. In his lap lay three satsumas, or Clementine oranges. Our traveller stopped to rest and kindly asked the other young man why he was brooding:
"I have no gift to give the maiden I love; you see, I am a poor orphan boy just like you... but she lives in that castle up the hill over there, she wears the finest silks, and I fear her parents will not see I'm good enough... But what a lovely flower! It's as if you were wearing your heart upon your chest! That peony is surely something worth giving her; may I give it to her?"
Daietsu kindly gave the suitor his peony, and received the three fruits in exchange. They were brightly coloured, ripe, juicy little oranges... surely something worth the pain when the day had advanced a little more and he would be flushed with thirst and the hot sun!
After thanking one another and taking their leave, on our lad went carrying the three fruits. And soon came the mid-day and the sun's rays plumbed down upon the ground. Not finding a spring around in the hilly country, Daietsu stopped in his tracks by the wayside for the third time, in the shade of a pine... and, as he put a peeled satsuma to his lips, a reeling rickshaw peddler, drenched with perspiration, collapsed right by his side!
"This poor man is exhausted and sunstruck, and far thirstier than I," the orphan boy thought, so he carried the peddler into the friendly shade and put the three satsumas, one by one, into his mouth; the weary peddler eagerly gulped down the citrus juice and, after a while resting and cooling himself, once the mid-day had turned to afternoon, he looked left and right and into the younger man's friendly eyes, realising who had brought him to the shade and quenched his thirst.
"You saved my life; that good deed shall not be in vain!" he said, returning to his rickshaw and giving his saviour the finest silk he carried within. It was a lovely roll of lilac brocade, with a wisteria pattern embroidered in silver thread.
After thanking one another and taking their leave, on our lad went with the roll of silk under his left arm. As the sun began to set, he came across a carriage in which a young lady, a maiden who looked too lovely to be mortal and human, had stopped for a rest. The next day would be her lord father's fiftieth birthday, and she wanted to surprise him with a brand new kimono... and what's more, she was very fond of the colour lilac and wisterias were her favourite flowers!
The lad was more than honoured to give his brocade away to such a friendly and kind-hearted maiden, and she had found him after her taste as well, no matter the difference in rank. So he told her the whole story from the point when the goddess had given him the advice and he had picked up the straw... and she listened with sparkles in her eyes and a smile on her face, as he felt a twinge in his chest both from her reactions and his own recollections.
Certainly, the goddess Kannon had given both the noble maiden and the orphan stripling a good fortune they could not even dream of!
That evening, Daietsu travelled by carriage towards the castle by the maiden's side; she was the only child and heiress to the whole shire, and her highborn parents were also impressed by the chain of acts of kindness, surely a sign from above, that had led to him supping and sleeping that night in the halls of privilege.
A few days later, the lad and the heiress were husband and wife, and he never had to live in want or struggle for his life anymore. He still kept, however, the nom de guerre of Lord Ricestraw, to remember the acts of kindness which had led him to a life of privilege that, luckily, never corrupted his good soul. He even founded a school for the village children, so that, regardless of gender or rank, no one should grow up unlearned.
Thus does the Goddess of Mercy thank her votaries!

Once more, and to quote the Shakespearean Cerimon, this mukashibanashi, like The Hatted Jizos before, demonstrates the worth that charity, learned or not, aye bears.
As said in the introduction to this tale, it is similar to the film Pay It Forward or chain tales such as "Piggy Won't Go Over the Fence" (type 2030) or "The Death of the Little Hen/Tittymouse" (type 2021). The chain reaction in this story features human rather than animal, plant, and object actants, which makes the approach to the premise different to the one heard in Western folktales and closer to postmodern retellings such as the film.
It's also reminiscent to Hans in Luck, collected by the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen, in which a young man trades down (instead of up like Daietsu) from a bar of gold to a whetstone and harmonica (or from a horse to a sack full of apples, in the Andersen tale). In these tales (type 1415), however, the titular character always trades an item for one of lesser value, retaining an optimistic outlook all the time; the Andersen version ends with a successful bet with two foreign businessmen ("my wife will kiss me, not kill me!") and subsequent rise to wealth.
In real life, at the turn of the millennium, a humble young man has traded himself up from one red paperclip to a suburban house and motor car. Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald achieved this through fourteen online trades during the course of a year (2005-2006). "A lot of people have been asking how I've stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: 'I have no idea'", he told the BBC.
Many Japanese role-playing games, inspired by this tale, feature a sidequest/subplot that involves a chain of deals to achieve a one-of-a-kind rare item.


MUKASHIBANASHI DONE SO FAR:

Benizara and Kakezara
Kaguyahime (Princess Kaguya)
Taro Urashima
Momotaro (Peach Taro)
Grampies with Wens (Kobutori Jiisan)
Old Man Bloom (Hanasaka Jiisan)
The Hatted Jizos (Kasa Jizo)
The Tengu's Cloak
Mount Crackle (Kachikachiyama)
The Macaque Vs. the Crab (Saru Kani Gassen)
Lord Ricestraw

The Lucky Kettle (Bunbuku Chagama)
The Crane Maiden
The Axe in the Pond

MUKASHIBANASHI 6: THE HATTED JIZOS

MUKASHIBANASHI 6: THE HATTED JIZOS (KASA JIZO)

Since we mentioned the Japanese peasants' traditional winter occupation of making and selling those conical rice-straw hats in the last tale (Old Man Bloom), I thought that it would make a good springboard for this other story, in which the kindness of childless old people is rewarded by the gods (there's no unkind foil to this jiisan and baasan, but still, the good deed rewarded is what counts):

Mukashi mukashi, once upon a time, there lived an old childless couple in a cottage thatched with rice-straw, with a few chickens and a little rice pad of their own, on the slope of a dormant volcano (whether it was the Fuji-san or another volcano, the sources differ depending on who is telling the tale). During the winter, both to keep themselves busy and earn some money, they would make these conical hats, called "kasa" in Japanese, from the straw left after threshing the rice and mending the thatched roof, and the old man would sell the hats in the nearby market-towns.
One such winter evening, when the whole countryside round was blanketed in white and every treetop but the pines' was frosted and bared, the husband returned home at dusk with the five hats he had left, those hats he meant to sell another day, strapped to his back. A sixth kasa he wore on his own head to keep out the cold and the sleet, keeping his own head warm; for, after all, it's from there that most of the body warmth leaves the system, and he was a pretty sensible, aside from kind-hearted, good old man. 
Now on the uphill path, right outside the old country shrine, stood a half dozen Jizos in a row. And you, dear reader, may wonder what on Earth these Jizo things are, so let me explain: a Jizo is a god, or more or less of a god (actually, also a past life of Buddha) depicted as a shaven child monk, or novice, known as the patron god of children dead and alive, even stillborn and adopted infants. So he takes good care of all children, especially orphans and those who have died young, giving them all tender loving care that the latter need in the afterlife. He wears also a long wand or staff in his right hand, and in fact each of these six Jizos carried one, to alert the bugs around of his approach, and have them retreat in advance, for a Jizo is so kind he will not even step on a line of ants (That's how you can identify a Jizo if you bump across one: by the childhood, the shaved head, and the wand held in his right hand; in fact, the bug-warning staff is the most impressive thing I've heard a deity can carry; since it's not a weapon but rather a life-saver!).
Now having been childless for decades had never allowed a grudge against the god Jizo and the six Jizo statues within the pious, good-natured hearts of the old folks. In fact, seeing the storm clouds approach and sensing the blizzard ahead, the old hatter-farmer thought the poor things (though made of volcanic stone, the god Jizo dwelled within every single one of them) would surely freeze to death... what better than giving them a few gifts, without asking for anything in exchange? And so, as he trudged homeward, he hatted each of the Jizos with one of the hats he carried on his back. When he came to the sixth Jizo, the only hat the old man had left was the one on his own head... but still, he put his own hat on the last Jizo's head and hastened home, to return by a friendly wife and a warm fireside right before the snowstorm set in.
"You must be freezing!" his wife told him, looking at him with concern in her eyes and wondering what had become of his hat; had the wind knocked it off? So her hubby told about the good deed he had done by hatting all six Jizos, and then the old lady gave him a hug and a kiss, thanking the gods for having married someone so kind-hearted, no matter how humble and childless were the lives they led.
After a frugal meal of rice and vegetables, both spouses went to bed, but, in the middle of the long, cold, dire winter night, they were awakened by the sound of children singing. Surely, they thought, the village children have come to give us a New Year surprise! Yet, as the voices grew clearer and clearer, the old folks could hear distinctly that the children sang:
"When the storm was coming,
right before it came,
the hatter, with such noble aim,
gave us six good straw hats,
one for each head:
we should reward him now in bed!
Thank the hatter and his wife, very much indeed!"
Imagine the old folks' surprise when they went up to the threshold and found all six Jizos, with smiles on their stony faces, greeting them right outside! All six little gods carried their bug-warning staffs in their right hands, even though in winter there were no bugs to warn of their approach, and each and every one carried a different gift in his left hand: a bottle of distilled sake, a pair of kimonos of silk brocade, a batch of freshly made moon cakes, a little casket full of gold koban, a pair of snug and soft warm winter blankets, and decorations made from bamboo and pine branches to ring in the New Year!
The old couple warmly and sincerely thanked the Jizos and invited them into their humble home. At sunrise, the little stone gods returned to their place outside the shrine, where they still stand, yet from that day on there has never been a winter during which the locals have hatted all six of those Jizos, which has become a regional tradition.

REMARKS ON THIS TALE:

• This tale, as seen before, lacks the unkind person foil, like Kakezara or the wealthy young couple in Hanasaka Jiisan (Old Man Bloom), typical of the kind-and-unkind pattern, but still what matters is the meaning, the universal message that kindness and generosity are never wasted. Like Shakespeare's Cerimon, this hatter demonstrates the worth that charity, learned or not, aye bears.
• It also reminds me of Die Sterntaler (The Star Doubloons), gathered by the Grimms, and The Frangipani Maiden; in both of these tales, a humble homeless orphan girl gives away all of her attire, one piece of clothing at a time, to strangers in a direr need than that of herself, during a cold winter night... and is subsequently richly rewarded.
• On the Jizos' bug-warning staffs I have already spoken, and obviously praised the idea, as a Lemony narrator in the tale, as you can read above.

MUKASHIBANASHI I HAVE DONE SO FAR AND THOSE LEFT TO TELL:

Benizara and Kakezara
Kaguyahime (Princess Kaguya)
Taro Urashima
Momotaro (Peach Taro)
Grampies with Wens (Kobutori Jiisan)
Old Man Bloom (Hanasaka Jiisan)
The Hatted Jizos (Kasa Jizo)
The Tengu's Cloak
Mount Crackle (Kachikachiyama)
The Macaque Vs. the Crab (Saru Kani Gassen)