Schippeitaro

is the name of a helper dog in the Japanese fairy tale by the same name.

Translations include "Schippeitaro" in Andrew Lang's '' Violet Fairy Book'' (1901), taken from a German copy, and Mrs. James's "Schippeitaro" (1888), which share the same plotline: The mountain spirit and its minions (in the guise of cats in this version) demand a yearly human sacrifice of a maiden from the local village. A young warrior overhears the spirits hinting that their would-be bane was "Shippeitaro", which turns out to be a dog. This dog is substituted for the maiden to be placed inside the sacrificial container, and when the spirits arrive, the warrior and dog attack the cats and vanquish them.

The evil spirits appear as monkeys in most instances of the tale, as in the version of "Shippei Taro" given in Keigo Seki's anthology (translated into English 1963). In fact, this folktale is classified as tale type by Japanese folklorists.

In variants, the dog may have Suppeitarō, Suppetarō or a variety of other names, for example, "Hayatarō of Kōzenji temple in Shinano". The dog may not be given any name at all.

Monkey God tales preserved in the medieval anthologies ''Konjaku Monogatarishū'' and ''Uji Shūi Monogatari'' have been suggested as being the original sources of the orally disseminated versions.

Translations

The version of "Schippeitaro" in Andrew Lang's ''The Violet Fairy Book'' (1901) was taken from ''Japanische Märchen und Sagen'' collected by Professor (Leipzig, 1885).

The story of "Schippeitaro" (1888) as told by Mrs. T. H. James (Kate James), was number 17 in the "Japanese Fairy Tale Series" printed by Hasegawa Takejirō, who issued many such ''chirimen-bon'' or "crepe-paper books". Mrs. James's version follows a storyline identical to Lang's version.

Synopsis

Below is the summary of the Lang/Mrs. James version:

A young adventure-seeking warrior entered an enchanted forest, and he slept in a shrine (or chapel) there, and was awakened at midnight by the noises of cats yelling and dancing. The cats could be heard saying: "Do not tell Shippeitaro!"

Afterwards, the warrior visited a nearby village, and there he answered a girl's plea for help. It was the village custom to sacrifice a maiden to the mountain spirit, and it was her turn that year. She was placed inside a cage (or cask) and left at the shrine. The warrior made inquiries to find out about the famous dog Schippeitaro (standard modern romanization: Shippeitarō), owned by the prince's overseer, and obtained permission to borrow the dog. The warrior then replaced the maiden inside the cage with Schippeitaro. The cage was brought to the shrine, and the cats arrived. When the huge black cat opened the cage, Shippeitaro jumped out and killed it. The warrior entered the fray and together they killed several more cats, and the rest of them fled. The warrior returned Schippeitaro to his rightful owner, and the village afterwards held an annual festival in honor of the warrior and the heroic dog.

Variants

The Lang/Mrs. James version which features cats as the antagonists is actually atypical. In most ''Shippeitaro'' tales, the malevolent spirits appear as monkeys (or baboons).

An example of "Shippei Taro" published in Keigo Seki (ed.), Robert J. Adams (tr.), ''Folktales of Japan'' (1963) had been collected in Monou District, Miyagi. The priest in the story defeated the ogres (whose remains were those of dead monkeys) by replacing the sacrificial maiden inside the chest with Shippei Taro, a dog brought from the distant city of Nagahama in Ōmi Province.

Seki himself collected a number of variant tales from the field. When Seki published ''Nihon mukashibanashi taisei'' (1978), his provisional count reached 67 examples. This tally was inclusive, even counting tales where the dog helper did not appear at all.

The dog may or may not have a name at all. And the name is not entirely consistent. The dog's name may be only a slight variant of Shippeitaro, such as (, or an alternate reading (Takeberatarō) or altogether different. The dog may be Shippeitarō/Suppe(i)tarō from Ōmi or Tanba or some other province. In several examples, the dog appears as or of temple in Shinano Province.

According to one scholar the name Shippeitarō tends to occur near Tōtomi Province (Shizuoka Prefecture), while Hayatarō is concentrated in Shinano Province (Nagano Prefecture). It has been observed that in Shinano dialect, denoted "wolf cub", which probably gave rise to the name Heibōtarō, and Hayatarō may well be a further corruption of this.

The evil spirits may be in the form of monkey, cat, rat, badger or " raccoon dog" (''mujina'', ''tanuki'').

Old printed book

There is also a ''kibyōshi'' type printed book from the Edo Period, the ''Zōho Shippeitarō'' (1796) meaning the "expanded version" that was written by with illustrations by ukiyo-e artist Toyokuni. This book illustrates spirits of the monkey, fox, ''kappa'', ''tanuki'' (raccoon dog), hare, and wolf kind devouring the human sacrifice, and in the culminating scene depicts Shippeitarō defeating wolves.

Precursor

In the medieval anthology ''Konjaku Monogatarishū'' occurs a similar story of a sacrifice-demanding monkey god, entitled "How in Mimasaka Province a God was Trapped by a Hunter and Living Sacrifice Stopped". The Shippeitaro tales have been considered orally transmitted versions of this medieval prototype.

English translations of this medieval version is found in S. W. Jones's ''Ages Ago: Thirty-Seven Tales from the Konjaku Monogatari Collection'' (1959), and Michelle Osterfeld Li's study ''Ambiguous Bodies''.

A similar tale is also included in another medieval anthology, the ''Uji Shūi Monogatari''.

Tale type

In Japanese folklore studies, the "Shippeitarō" story is classed under the tale type , categorized as Type 91 by Seki in his paper written in English., note 26 This general tale group is more broad, and includes tales where a dog is not involved at all. The tale group (''Sarugami taiji'') is assigned Seki No. 256 (NMBS = ''Nihon mukashibanashi shūsei'' II; NMBT=taisei.) in Japanese scholarship.

Since the story concludes with the heroes abolishing the practice of offering maidens as human sacrifice, it draws a parallel to the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, and there are certain similarities also to the story of Susanoo saving Kushinadahime from the great serpent Yamata no Orochi.

In the Aarne–Thompson classification, the tale is classed as " The Dragon Slayer" type, AT300.

Explanatory notes

References

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Waseda Univ. collection

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Japanese fairy tales
Cats in literature
Dogs in literature
Animal tales
ATU 300-399