Die schönsten japanischen Märchen

by Rotraud Saeki

Märchen von der Inselwelt Okinawa, vom Meer und den Sternen, Tieren mit menschlichen Eigenschaften und Menschen in Tiergestalt. Rotraud Saeki ist gebürtige Deutsche und lebt seit mehreren Jahrzehnten in Japan. Dort ist sie als Deutschlehrerin und Übersetzerin tätig und beschäftigt sich intensiv mit japanischen Märchen, insbesondere mit den Überlieferungen der Inselgruppe Okinawa.

Genres: Fairy Tales, Japan

192 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2010

About the author

Born 1947

Reviews

[Japan Connect (Fabienne) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Titel ist in zweierlei Hinsicht irreführend:
Erstens handelt es sich nach europäischen Verständnis eher um Sagen oder Erzählungen. Prinzen und Prinzessinnen spielen kaum eine Rolle und wenn, dann sind sie meist Tiere öder Götter.
Zweitens werden zwar auch Sagen aus der japanischen Hauptinsel (Honshu) erzählt, der Fokus liegt aber ganz klar auf Okinawa.

Hat man die obigen Punkte geklärt, kann man sich auf eine Vielfalt von alten und jüngeren Sagen - zum Beispiel eine japanische Schneewittchenadaption - freuen.

Gefallen hat mir, dass die Natur in den meisten Sagen eine vorrangige Rolle spielt, was mich an die Ghibli-Filme erinnert hat.

Mehr zum Buch im Lesemonat Dezember auf YouTube:

https://youtu.be/DpDpatKrxKY

[dunkelgefunkel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Märchen würde ich es nicht nennen, sondern kurze Mythen und Sagen. Konnten mich oft nicht so begeistern...

[Andre · Rating 4 out of 5]

The introduction to this book started really weird, when it talked about Japanese as writing poems with a brush, drying laundry on a bamboo stick, pointing to your nose and say "me". I wondered from what time is this. I have never heard anyone state something like this about Japan.
But after reading this odditiy it was nice that in this book's version of the heavenly maiden trope the guy found her garments accidentally and didn't plan to kidnap/force her. Granted, he still didn't tell her. And apparently this is also a version of the lovers across the milky way story, except that this one has no birds serving as a bridge. And in another story the fox god who loved sumo actually was a fox deity apparently, funny, I expected it to be just a fox and not specifically a deity.
I wasn't surprised in another story though. It was so clear that the woman with the white face was the prior white snake and the monk with the sharp features and brown clothes the falcon from before. Also, funny, the snake had poisonous breath. How did anyone come to that idea?
The sea ghost in another story sounded familiar to me and according to the notes I was right, it was an umibozu... which I think means sea monk because it is big and bald. But while this was clear, I was confused again with another story. Was the villain a wizard or a demon? It could be the latter, considered the man-eating aspect and how the villain was referred to.
And naturally I came across an old friend, the "BADGER", you see I bet that the "badger" impersonating the arch abbot in one story is not a badger but a raccoon dog. And considered that this woman is a professional translator and this book is from 2005, she really should not have mistranslated the term tanuki as badger. After all, we have raccoon dogs in Germany for decades now.
Also funny how the human man in question in another story gets turned into a bird each time he enters the first three chambers. That the birds turn into women, I expected, I didn't expect the human to turn into a bird, that is very unusual for East Asia in my experience.
What I also didn't expect, was the following big chapter of tales from Okinawa. And according to these tales, a fly makes those motions with its arms, not for cleaning or something, but for making amends to humans. Well, that doesn't help many flies. The book claims that the story of the frog husband is rare, but I would disagree, for me this is not the first time I saw it. There is of course the Princess and the Frog and I also remember a frog husband tale, somewhat similar to this one here from Taiwan, in both cases a couple gives birth to a frog and that frog wants to marry. Also, this here has the common theme of a skin being used to transform and destroying it to have the frog keep its human shape. And speaking of familiar tales, this also has the dog husband tale. And in this version it is good for the young woman in question that the dog who kills the enemy general to get the boss's daughter later turns into a human (except for the tail), or otherwise things would get icky here. Albeit she is really way too happy to marry a dog. I wondered whether this, and other, tale actually immigrated to Okinawa, the author stated something like this earlier and for instance, a bear mother tale is not from Okinawa originally since it never had bears and apparently knowledge of how bears look like came from Taiwan. Later there were other stories that also showed similarities, lots of them, with stories from other parts of the world. At first I thought that one story was of the Cinderella archetype (stepmother, stepsister and all), then there was the order by the stepmother to have her killed and the man doesn't do it, and I thought this might be like Snowwhite, and then it is clear that this is a Cinderella archetype after all. She leaves "home", aka abandoned on an island, and even marries a prince. However, another story was definitely related to Snow White. The girl here is called Yukihime, Snow Princess, and not only did her mother think she wants a "girl like that" when her blood falls into the snow (Okinawa apparently doesn't have snow), but the stepmother has a magic mirror answering her (of course plus the "who is the prettiest"), and the girl has black hair and all. The stepmother tries to kill her ... this is Snow White. The author even says that this story is derived from Snow White, which I can believe since it is so similar. However, I have more problems with her claim that the story where Lord Yurikawa is so strong that he can lift stuff easily that his staff can't and he was gone for years and all, and that this is enough to say this is based on the Oddysey seems a bit farfetched for me.
Albeit these stories were still mostly what I would expect to see, some really new stuff was in other tales, and sometimes a bit horrorfying. This goes from cows becoming whales, to a girl diying and the tree growing from her corpse and then made into a boat and finally to all the sand on the beaches of Okinawa being basically the corpses of countless star children.... that is pretty damn dark. Plus, if its that many, did the parents not notice anything about the giant snake eating their children?
Sadly, that was it really in terms of positivity, as most of the stories towards the end have been pretty boring. Only that Moi guy and his antics and the child of a heavenly king defeating demons were more entertaining.
And according to the closure chapter half of the japanese fairy and folktales collected since the early 20th century stem from Okinawa despite it having such a low population.

[Saskia Dreßler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich mochte das Buch, aber leider waren es mehr Märchen aus Okinawa als auch Zentral Japan - deshalb ein Stern Abzug.

[Vanessa Booksmymate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book during my hoidays - it was perfect for that!

The book is divided into two main parts: "stories from Japan" and "stories from Okinawa", and each of These two main parts is then divided into several shorter or longer stories, ranging von 2 to 6 pages.
That made it an easy read and you could read it chapter by chapter (Story by Story) and could Interrupt or stop reading at almost any time, because the stories are so short.
another positive Thing is that you get to know a lot of different stories in one book, due to their shortness.
also, almost every Story has a short note at the end, telling the Reader about where the Story Comes from, explains difficult japanese words or traditions, or draws parallels to fairytales from other countries, e.g. europe.
The stories are sometimes sweet, sometimes strange, sometines quite harsh and horrible....


I would reccomend it to all People who like fairy tales or old "legend" stories, to those who are interested in foreign cultures and especially to those who are interested in japanese culture.