Schippeitaro
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is the name of a helper dog in the Japanese
fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic (paranormal), magic, incantation, enchantments, and mythical ...
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 The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of t ...
in this version) demand a yearly
human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease gods, a human ruler, an authoritative/priestly figure or spirits of dead ancestors or as a retainer sacrifice, wherein ...
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
monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...
s in most instances of the tale, as in the version of "Shippei Taro" given in
Keigo Seki was a Japanese folklorist. He was joined a group under Yanagita Kunio, but often came to different conclusions regarding the same folktales. Along with collecting and compiling folktales, Seki also arranged them into a series of categories. This ...
'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 , also known as the , is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales fr ...
'' and ''
Uji Shūi Monogatari is a collection of Japanese tales written around the beginning of the 13th century. The author is unknown, and it may have been revised several times. The title means "gleanings from ''Uji Dainagon Monogatari''", a book which no longer exists. Th ...
'' 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 ''The Langs' Fairy Books'' are a series of 25 collections of true and fictional stories for children published between 1889 and 1913 by Andrew Lang and his wife, Leonora Blanche Alleyne. The best known books of the series are the 12 collections ...
'' (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 was an innovative Japanese publisher specializing in books in European languages on Japanese subjects. Hasegawa employed leading foreign residents as translators and noted Japanese artists as illustrators, and became a leading purveyor of export ...
, 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 Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...
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 was a Japanese folklorist. He was joined a group under Yanagita Kunio, but often came to different conclusions regarding the same folktales. Along with collecting and compiling folktales, Seki also arranged them into a series of categories. This ...
(ed.), Robert J. Adams (tr.), ''Folktales of Japan'' (1963) had been collected in
Monou District, Miyagi Map showing original extent of Monou District in Miyagi Prefecturecolored area=original extent in Meiji period was a rural district in Miyagi Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of northern Japan. The city of Higashimatsushima and much of the c ...
. 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 or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...
. According to one scholar the name Shippeitarō tends to occur near Tōtomi Province (
Shizuoka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Shizuoka Prefecture has a population of 3,637,998 and has a geographic area of . Shizuoka Prefecture borders Kanagawa Prefecture to the east, Yamanashi Prefecture to the northea ...
), while Hayatarō is concentrated in
Shinano Province or is an old province of Japan that is now Nagano Prefecture. Shinano bordered on Echigo, Etchū, Hida, Kai, Kōzuke, Mikawa, Mino, Musashi, Suruga, and Tōtōmi Provinces. The ancient capital was located near modern-day Matsumoto, whi ...
(
Nagano Prefecture is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the ...
). 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 is an old Japanese term primarily referring to the Japanese badger, but traditionally to the Japanese raccoon dog (''tanuki''), causing confusion. Adding to the confusion, it may also refer to the introduced masked palm civet, and in some regio ...
'', ''tanuki'').


Old printed book

There is also a ''
kibyōshi is a genre of produced during the middle of the Edo period (1603–1867), from 1775 to the early 19th century. Physically identifiable by their yellow-backed covers, were typically printed in 10 page volumes, many spanning two to three volumes ...
'' type printed book from the Edo Period, the ''Zōho Shippeitarō'' (1796) meaning the "expanded version" that was written by with illustrations by
ukiyo-e Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surfac ...
artist Toyokuni. This book illustrates spirits of the monkey, fox, ''
kappa Kappa (uppercase Κ, lowercase κ or cursive ; el, κάππα, ''káppa'') is the 10th letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless velar plosive sound in Ancient and Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value o ...
'', ''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 , also known as the , is a Japanese collection of over one thousand tales written during the late Heian period (794–1185). The entire collection was originally contained in 31 volumes, of which 28 remain today. The volumes cover various tales fr ...
'' 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 is a collection of Japanese tales written around the beginning of the 13th century. The author is unknown, and it may have been revised several times. The title means "gleanings from ''Uji Dainagon Monogatari''", a book which no longer exists. Th ...
''.


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 In a legend, Saint Georgea soldier venerated in Christianitydefeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tr ...
, and there are certain similarities also to the story of
Susanoo __FORCETOC__ Susanoo (; historical orthography: , ) is a in Japanese mythology. The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory chara ...
saving Kushinadahime from the great serpent
Yamata no Orochi , or simply , is a legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed Japanese dragon/serpent. Mythology Yamata no Orochi legends are originally recorded in two ancient texts about Japanese mythology and history. The 712 AD transcribes this dragon name ...
. In the Aarne–Thompson classification, the tale is classed as " The Dragon Slayer" type, AT300.


Explanatory notes


References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * * * * * * * * *
Waseda Univ. collection
* * * * * * {{refend Japanese fairy tales Cats in literature Dogs in literature Animal tales ATU 300-399