Ancient Tales and Folklore of Japan

by Richard Gordon Smith

Traveler and naturalist Richard Gordon Smith journeyed in Japan, where he recorded ancient Japanese myths and legends in his 'voluminous illustrated diaries'. The result is a fascinating collection of Japanese historical legends and folktales. Nearly all of them are set in a well-defined time and place, instead of 'once upon a time.' Their themes include ghosts; unrequited love across social boundaries; Shinto landscape, tree and ocean spirits; and tales driven by Bushido and Buddhist ethics. Gordon Smith's style is to re-tell the stories very literally, even when they include supernatural elements. The result is an anthology of Japanese 'magical realist' tales.

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 1, 2024

About the author

Richard Gordon Smith (1858-1918) was a British traveler, sportsman and naturalist who traveled through many countries in the late nineteenth century and lived in Japan for a number of years.

Source: Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5

Format Review 🎧 3/5
The narrator’s delivery was good, which is especially admirable given what he had to work with. I listened to it on 1.25x speed because the speech was slow in places but overall, the narrator did his best with these stories. I probably wouldn’t have finished this if it wasn’t in the audiobook format.

Story Review 📖 1/5
First off, this needed much, much stronger editing. Simply put, it’s not well written. The writing, grammar, sentence structure, and language is very poor: we have incredibly stilted and unrealistic dialogue and very awkward, or just plain wrong, language (some examples to illustrate: “revenge my death” should be “avenge”, “talk the language” should be “speak”, “he aroused his wife” should be “roused”). There’s a noticeable overuse of the word “moreover”. It felt archaic with a jarringly present author. The book is a product of its time and I didn’t appreciate the racist and misogynist commentary from the English author. It wouldn’t detriment any of the stories to remove the racism and misogyny. I can’t see this landing positively with a 2025 readership.

There were some interesting stories; but most are forgettable and underwhelming, blending together boringly. It doesn’t help that so many of the similar ones are grouped together (like all the fire-themed ones at the start and the tree-themed toward the end). I definitely preferred the ghostly stories but these lacked distinction too. I got really sick of the “beautiful 16/17 year old daughters” with insta-love. As I was listening, I wanted to verify/fact-check a lot of the history and legend. I don’t think samurai were committing seppuku and regular folks were killing themselves over the slightest little thing like they did in this book. Also, it’s deemed Japanese folklore but doesn’t have the tale of maneki neko?!

My pet theory is that this English dude was wandering around Japan asking for stories so he could write/sell it in England and many of the stories are just folks messing with him.

I was awfully disappointed in this. It was a beautiful opportunity to condense, tidy-up, streamline, and curate a cool collection of folktales but it feels more like someone found a manuscript, glanced at it and was like “that’ll do”. 🤷‍♀️

I had my request to review this accepted by Arcturus Digital Audio on NetGalley.

[Luz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd like to thank NetGalley for the audiobook copy of this book sent in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic narration by Geoff Sugiyama!

Now, to the text. While the stories may seem repetitive and trite from a modern perspective, I think this book can be enjoyed when read from the right angle: not as a sample of Japanese mythos but as a text produced by an upper-class British naturalist visiting Meiji-era Japan at the peak of the British Empire. That is, through a lens that viewed the Other as exotic, mysterious, and mystical but, essentially, scientifically and culturally inferior—yet "learning," that is, rapidly modernizing to Western standards. The "British explorer goes somewhere, takes notes" trope is a genre unto itself, and this is a perfect example.

In short, I wouldn’t recommend this book to any Japanophile/Shinnichi, but I would to anyone with a deeper interest in history.

[Des · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Geoff Sugiyama. The narration is first-rate, the voice almost hypnotic. I very much enjoyed listening to a couple of tales with a cup of coffee each afternoon for the past few weeks. There are over 50 tales in total in the collection. Most are quintessentially Japanese tales of nature and fate, of sacred trees, mountains and remote regions. Some might complain that there are some similar sounding tales which perhaps could have been cut, but not me, I loved it all. Special thank you to Arcturus Digital Audio and NetGalley for a no obligation digital audiobook.

[Armanis Ar-Feinial · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is good for what it is. Did I enjoy every minute of it, no. In fact, I found myself skimming this collection towards the end.

What exactly is this? Technically speaking it would be an anthology with unknown narrators since we only know these tales are translated from Japanese to English. These aren't, I assume, well known tales as they seem to be very local to the region in which they were collected. There are some takes on Honor that can be gleaned from this collection and if you're just looking for something quick to read, this is fine, but you should note these aren't stories in their purest form. They are regurgitated in English.

[Chris Harrison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was hoping to enjoy this a bit more, but for every interesting story there's about five very similar stories - most of which seem to involve a young woman dying of a broken heart after falling in love with a samurai or a ghost.

It certainly is interesting for gaining an insight into the kind of word of mouth stories that have been passed down through Japanese history, but kudos to you if you have it in you to read them all.

[Carolina Búho · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

[Mellissa Bushby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative, but I did find many of the stories quite similar. I enjoyed the historical aspects and the look into another culture.

[Omri Dallal · Rating 4 out of 5]

good but a bit repetitive

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exelente libro, sus relatos son muy buenos